> ExeiiisieN 



THE SIA¥E STATES, 



WASHINGTON ON THE POTOMAC TO THE FRONTIER OP MEXICO; WITH 
OF POPULAR MANNERS AND GEOLOGICAL NOTICES. 



BY 



G. W. FEATHERSTONHAUGH, F.R.S., F.G.S 




NEW-YORK: 

PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, 

No. 82 Cliff-Street. 

18 44. 



CONTENTS. 



tTTRODUCTioN Page 5 

CHAPTER I. 

Barnum's Hotel at Baltimore — Canvas-back Ducks — Soft 
Cr:il)s ; the Process of changing their Shells — Railroad 
to Fredericton in Maryland — Iniiiositions practised upon 
Travellers — Notices of the Geology of the Country — 
Harper's-ferry ; the Shenandoah Valley — Nationality of 

the Gernianico-Aniericans 11 

CHAPTER II. 

Ascent of the first Alleghany Ridges— A dandy Rattle- 
snake — M;ignificent View across the AUeghanies from 
Warm Springs Mountain — Affecting Reception at the 

Hotel of the Warm Springs 15 

CHAPTER III. 

A Virginia Hotel in the Mountains— A dancing Landlord 
— Incomparable Beauty of the Warm Baths — Their 
gaseous and solid Contents— The Hot Springs— Cav'xous 
Effect produced upon them by an Earth()uake— Geologi- 
cal Structure of the Ridges — View of the AUeghanies 

and the Warm Springs Valley 17 

CHAPTER IV. 

The celebrated White Sulphur Springs — Mr. Anderson, a 
Character — Description of this Watering Pl.^e — Beauty 
of the Alleu'hany Mountain — Our various A^entures at 
a Blacksmith's Boarding-house and Alabama Row — An 
old Lady makes a double Somerset — Our Removal to 

Compulsion Row ' . 21 

CHAPTER V. 

State of Society at ConipuUion Row — Fine Flavour of the 
Oysters at New Orleans. — Priv.ite.Cabins at the Springs 
— A Cyclopean Kitchen — Merciful Plan of Killing Bul- 
locks with the Rifle — Extr lordinary Performances at 
Dinner — Mr. Wright's Shanty in the Woods — Generals 
who have never been Soldiers — The Ferryman and the 

Traveller without a Title 25 

CHAPTER VI. 

The System of Alleghiny Ridges cau.«ed by an Upheaval 
from below, and the White Sulphur Springs a Conse- 
quence of the Movement — Gaseous Contents of the 
Waters — White Rock Mountains — Horizontal Fossil- 
iferous Strata in place . . ... 29 

CHAPTER VIL 

Paying beforehand as bad as not p'lying all — Joiuney to the 
Sweet Springs — Beiutv of the Country — Gaseous and 
solid Contents of the Waters— Remarkable Dam formed 
of Travertine — Ancient Travertine 350 feet above the 
Level of the present Springs, probably derived from them 
before the Valley existed — Proofs of the ancient Surface 

being lowered 31 

CHAPTER VOL 

Depart on foot across the Mountains to Fincastle — Decidu- 
ous and evergreen Trees alternating with the Soil— Fin- 
castle, a Virginia Town — Mr. Jefferson the Confucius of 
the LTniled States— Free-lhinkinfe and Universal SuftVase 
h's grand No<trums for good Government — A patriotic 
Proposition to blow Virginia " sky-high" to save its ( 'on- 
stilution — Botetourt Sprinss — A Camp of Negio Slave- 
drivers— The Cotfle of SI ives crosses New Rivi r m.ii- 
acled and fettered — The Necro drivers in mourning . 34 
CHAPTER IX. 

Cause of some Confusion in the Designation of the Alle- 
ghajiy Ridses explained— .\ Duck shootine Landlord- 
Arrive at Abingdon— Account of Saltville— Geologv of 
thev Valley and surrounding Coimlrv — Visit to King's 
Cove^a singular basin in Clinch Mountain, the residence 
of nnvOutlaw— His account of the Panthers and Wild 
Cat Ac&pucheurs— Strata of the Clinch Mountain . 39 
CHAPTER X. 

i nleisHfjt Piirtyin a Stage Coach— Arrive at Blountsville 
.1 the State of Tennessee- Fists versus Dirks and Pis- 
tols— KnoxviUe—jyieet President Jackson . . 43 
CHAPTER XL 

A Negro-driver In mourning for a great Patriot— IiTever- 
ence of a Negro to a White Man's Ghost— Bivouac of a 
Gang of chained Slaves— An agreeable and lively fel- 
low-passenger— Cross the Cumberland Mountains— Ar- 
rive at Sparti — A Driver killed — Hickory Vallev — 
Mounds and Graves of the Indians that formerly dvvelt 
here— Imaginary Pigmy Race 46 



CHAPTER XIL 

Indian Practice of burning the Underwood to enable the 
Natives to pursue the Game — The Aboriginal Races t» 
be traced by their Mounds — General Jackson's Planta- 
tion, the Hermitage — His Character by a Neighbour — 

Arrival at Nashville Page 44 

CHAPTER Xni. 

Description of Nashville— The College— Professor Tronst 
— The Baptist Preacher and the Rattlesnakes — A' lity 
betwixt certain Mexican Idols and others foir i m Se- 
quatchee Valley in Tennessee — Public Spirit of the lead- 
ing Men of Tennessee — Mr. Ridley, one of the earliest 
Settlers— His Adventures — Indian Attack upon a stock 
aded Fort — Heroic conduct of Mr. Ridley's Daughter — 
Murder of White Children by the Savages, and uniniti- 
gable Hatred of the Whites to them . . . .51 
CHAPTER XIV. 

The religious Sect of the Campbellites— Order of Priest- 
hood confined to handsome young Fellows — Geology of 
this part of Tennessee — Section of the Country made by 
the Cumberland River for 300 miles— Reraiirkable an 
cient Bed of broken Shells — Harpeth Ridge — Unios of 

the Western Waters 55 

CHAPTER XV. 

Leave Nashville— The Barrens of Kentucky— The Mam- 
i.'.oth Cave — First View of the Ohio River — Arrival at 
Louisville -Falls of the Ohio — Henry Clay, his great 
Popularity— Captain Jack of the Citizen Steamer, a most 
catawauipous Navigator — Public Indifference to the loss 
of Life in new Countries — Explanation of "a Sin to 

Crockett" 58 

CHAPTER XVI. 

Leave Louisville, and take to the Siage-Coach again — Dif- 
ference betwixt the Manners of Slave and Free States — 
Vincennes in the State of lllinoi-; — Old Race of French 
Canadians there — Beauty of the Prairies — Horizontal 
Coal Seams in the Bmks of the Rivers — Grouse — An- 
cient Bed of the Mississippi seven miles broad — The 
Town of St. Louis in the Stale of Missoiu-i- Col. Smith 
of the British Army—" Rum ing a Negro" explained— 
Jefliirson Barracks; admirable Management of a regi- 
mental Fund — Viiide Poche and Pain Court — A group 

of thirty Barrows 63 

CHAPTER XVIL 

A remarkable Barrow — The monuments of the Ancient 
Red People analogous to those of the Old Races in Eu- 
rope — Proljable Cause of the Diversity in Indi.in Dia- 
lects—A petiitii'il Forest — Society at St. Louis — More 
Boliins; at the Talile d'fldte — Fur-trappers of the Rocky 
Mountains — Excellent Markets at St. Louis — Money the 

real Object of Life 66 

CHAPTER XVIH. 

Piircn;;s<> a Waggon— Old French Town of St. Charles on 
Ih, .Missouri — Linden Grove — Origin of the Mounds — 

Customsof the 0.<age Indians 69 

CHAPTER XIX. 

Departure from St. Louis — The Comforts of an Indian 
Matrimonial Alliance — Tame Buffiloes — Herculaneum 
in America — Immense flocks of Cranes — History of Mrs. 

GiiUatin- Valine's Mines 71 

CHAPTER XX. 

Taplitt and Perry's Lead Mines — Geology a( the Lead 
District — System of Galeaiferou- Veins — Their Struct- 
ure antilogous to the Trap Ve'v.s at T'ofernish in Scot- 
land — Farmington — Visit '.o the Iron Mountain . 75 

CHAPrnu XXI. 

Mine la Motte — Veins of G;ilena disturbed bv elertrie 
Matter— Eiirthqifike at New Madrid i i 181 1— Frederic- 
town — A Judge's Encoiniain on the Mis iiri Bar — P.ui- 
ther Stories — Greenville— F;i re at mu opulent Missouri 
Finner's— Life of ti S<|Maiier — How to ' brine np" the 
Soverei'in People — Bear Oil Currency — Scene in a Couit 

of Justice 78 

CHAPTER XXH. 

Big Black River— First Appeira'ice of Pjirroqiiei-ts— Elk 
.and Buffalo- Little Black River — A Disaster, and a 
Nighs in the Woods— [vory billed wooH peckers, a u/ one 
of the Sovereign people un.-ilile to hold the renis ofG-iV- 
ernment— A Forest on Fiie— The Ciurant River f!2 



IV 



CONTENTS. 



09 



CHAPTER XXIII. 
The " Military Road"— Eleven-aiile Point River— Obliging 
Conduct of Widow Newland — The Advanttiges of 
"camping out"— Our front and hind Wlieels quarrel; 
the hind Wlieels turn back — Mr. and Mrs. Meriwether 
—Two suspicious Travellers— Murder of Mr. Childers— 
Extraordinary Spectacle produced by wild Pigeons- 
Bury the remains of Mr. Childers . . . Page 80 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
Description of White River— Judge Tucker's Cabin; his 
Account of the Murderof Childers— Account of the first 
Judge Lynch, and the state of Legal Practice in his 
Court — A successful Speculation in Lead — Clock Ped- 
lars insinuating Persons — White River Mountain — A 

Ruffian of the first order 88 

CHAPTER XXV. 
Little Red River— A distressed Family of Emigrants— A 
new kind of Grist-mill— Black Wolves— A wild Ameri- 
can Scene — Reach the Arkansas River — A Tavern at 

LitUeRock 92 

CHAPTER XXVI. 
State of Society at Little Rock— Don Jonathan— The Rev- 
erend Mr. Stevenson— Newspapers versus the Bible— 
aovernor Pope and his Lady— The Laws of Honour at 
Little Rock— A Duel in the Dark— A Bully killed-A 
College of Faro and Rouge et Noir— Arkansas Legisla- 
tors—The Speaker murders a Member in the body of 

the House— His Trial 94 

CHAPTER XXVII. 
Apology for the Manners of Arkansas— Manner of living 
at Little Ruck — Aversion to Shutting the Doors — Ter- 
tiary Deposit- Alluvial Bottoms, awd the Species of 
Plants growing there— Visit to the Maramelles— German 
Eniiiriants- Geolo>;v of the Mammelle Mountain— Enter 
aniiiiniense Swampy Plain— Danger of travelling with- 
out a Guide — Some apprehension of being obliged 
treat the Wolves— Reach a House . 
. CHAPTER XXVIIL 

A Concert of Wolves— Ancient Bed of the Arkansas— An 
Arkansas Honeymoon — Method of crossing a Bayou — 
Depart from Little Rock for the Hot Springs of the 
Washita— Explanation of a "Turn-out"— Stop at the 
hest Hotel on the Road—" Nisby" and her " Missus"— 
Stump Handle and Company— A fastidious Judge— Gov- 
ernor Shannon's Hotel— -A Jury de circumstantibus 102 
CHAPTER XXIX. 
Arrive at Magnet Cove— An interesting Mineral Locality— 
Strange effects of a Hurricane— Reach the Hot Springs 
— Wluttington without his Cat-Rare Accommodations 
—Description of the Springs— Fishes in Hot Water- 
Temperature and Gaseous Contents of the Hot Springs 
—The Travertine presents different Constituents below 

the Smface ^"' 

CHAPTER XXX. 
Curious and beautiful Mineral Structure of the adjacent 
Country — Locality whence tlie Indians procured the 
Mineral for their Arrow Heads— An unsophisticated 
"Bar-hunter" — Panthers fond of Buffalo Tongues — 
Strange single Combat betwixt a Hunter and a male 
Buffafo- Reasoning Power of the Animal— State of the 
Hunter's Nerves after the Battle . . ■ ■ H" 
CHAPTER XXXL 
l^ave the Hot Springs— Regain the " Militaty Road," and 
cross the Washita— How to drink Coffee made ot Acorns 
—The Caddo River— Mrs. Barkman, her extraordinary 
Accomplishmpnts— A Hunter's House and Family— Ter- 
tiary Deposits— A travelling Courthouse — A Knot of 
Gamblers— A Paddy going to Texas . . .113 
CHAPTER XXXII. 
3ear-hunting— Approach a subcietaceous Country— Judge 
Crose—iavspiited Territory betwixt Mexico and the Uni- 
fo,t q.^t„< A Prairie Country and subretaceous Fossils 
llGen'Mallhnrston-F'ot to wrest Texas from Mexico 
—Beauty of the Country . < • • • • ^^" 
CHAPTER XXXI 15. 
Probable Origin of Prairie^Land most attractive vvhen 
to be obtained without paying for- Mr Prior-Great 
Abuse of the Government Land Sales- An Oasis in the 
W^ilderness-(;ontrast between the educated and unedu- 
cated Chisses— Two patriotic Members of the Sovereign 

People. • • • "-^ 

CHAPTER XXXIV. . 

Mr Williams; his Adventures— Blunder of the Mexican 
Government-Reach Red River-Cross Into the Me.v.can 
Province of Texas-Lost Prairie, a l^f " '^'i' "^' "^ 
Land-Surprising Crop of Cotton m a field of f^O »='^,^ 
-The Abolition of Slavery a hopeless Case-The futme 

—Wild Muscadel Grape '■'^•' 

CHAPTER XXXV. _, ^ , 

Course and ancient Channels of Red River-The Great 



Raft — Method adopted of cutting it out — Danger to which 
New Orleans is exposed — Fight betwixt a Man and a 
Panther — Tragical Story of a Hunter — Comical Relation 
of a Solo played by a Negro to a Gang of Wolves— Fos- 
sil Oysters in the Saline .... Page 125 
CHAPTER XXXVL 
Reach Little Rock again — A pleasant Christmas Eve — 
Embark in a Steamer for New Orleans — A painful Mo- 
ment — Structure of the Banks of the Arkansas — Snags 
and Sawers explained — Frequent Change of the Chan- 
nel of the River — Cotton Plantations — Cause of the Va- 
riegated Structure of the Banks explained . . 128 
CHAPTER XXXVH. 
Approximative Method suggested of calculating the Age 
of Fluviitile Deposits— brutal Conduct of the Passen- 
gers—The Quapaw Indians a Tribe of the Osages — 
Monsieur Baraqu6, his Adventures — A young Vagabond 
— Post of Arkansas — Monsieur Notr<ibe — The River en 

croaching upon the Country 132 

CHAPTER XXXVIH. 
The Steamer boarded by Swindlers — Pandemonium afloat 
—Day and Night Orgies— A Mysterious Lady— Printed 
Rules to Decoy Passengers— White River— Reach the 
Mississippi— Arrive at Vicksburg— Mr. Vick and his 
brother Gentlemen — W^orse and worse — Compliments to 
the Captain of a Steamer by the Gentry of Vicksburg — 
A View of the Grand Gulf^Reach Natchez — A happy 
Deliverance of the Swindlers — Judge Lynch in the 
State of Mississippi — Arrive at New Orleans . . 135 
CHAPTER XXXIX. 
The Delta of the Mississippi— Shiftings of the Channel of 
the River — Formation of new Land at its Mouth — Visit 
the Cemeteries— M<ide of contriving dry Graves — Pirati- 
cal-looking Population — Green Peas out of doors, Jan. 1 
— Li:era^ie and the Sciences — New Orleans American- 
ised — Sunday Evening Meetings — Faro the principal 
Business transaced in New Orleans — The Legislature 

in Segsion — Good Theatres 139 

CHAPTER XL. 
Quadroon young Ladies, their hard fate — Liaisons of a 
Bal de Societe— An amiable Father of several Families 
— Good Prospect for the Anglo-Episcopal Cliiirch — .Span- 
ish Cathedral — Depart from New Orleans — A Uailroad 
— Embark in a Steamer fur Moiiile- A Sioi m — A Bisho]) 
on Board — Come to an anchor— The Cay and River of 
^ Mobile — Tokens of Commercial Activity — Beauty and 
Cleanliness of the town of Mobile — Spanish Creoles — 

The Bolero 141 

CHAPTER XLL 
Embark in a Steamer, and ascend the Mobile and Ala- 
bama — Tertiary Deposits at Fort Claiborne — Great Fer- 
tility of the State of Alabama — Aptitude of the Creek In- 
dians for Labour — Reach Montgomery, in Alabama — 
Filthiness of the "principal" Hotel — Engage a carriage 
to cross the Indian Territory — Country inundated — 
Cross the Oakfuskee and enter the Creek Nation . 144 



CHAPTER XLH. 
Description of the Mnscogee or Creek People — Their 
Sachem, M'GiUivray— Their Treaties with the Ameri- 
can Government — The Chiefs Corrupted by the Georgi- 
ans — Weatheifoid, the Sachem of the Lower Creeks, 
attacks and massacres the Garrison at Fort Minims — 
General Jackson takes the Field — Fatal Battle of Toho- 
peka, or the Horse Shoe — Weatherford's Heroic Con- 
duct — M'lntosh betrays his Countrymen, .ind is shot — 
The Creeks compelled to cede all their Country— Apol- 
ogy for the Whites 146 

CHAPTER XLIII. 
The Ruins of a Nation— Kateebee Swamp— A Turkey un- 
plumis — Emigrants with their Slaves — Phlebotomy — 
Diamond Rattle Snakes — Reach Columbus, in Georgia 
—Falls of the Chatahixichie- Leave Columbus— Obser- 
vations upon the Family of Naiades— Arrive at Augusta 
— Railroad to Charlesion, in South Carolina — Reach 

Columbia, in South Carolina 151 

CHAPTER XLIV. 
The Gentlemen of America— The Tariff and Nullification 
—Wise Conduct of Mr. Clay and Mr. Calhoun— Warlike 
Propensities of an Octoganarian philosopher— A black 
animal chained on the roof of a Stage-coach— The char- 
acter of the White Man elevated by the Slavery of the 

Black one ^^^ 

CHAPTER XLV. 
Inside and Outside Passengers in Chains— Bob Chatwood 
and the Game of All Fours— A social Bottle— An Over- 
turn in the dark— Reach Charlotte, in North Carolina- 
Description of the Gold Region in North Carolina and 
Virginia— Richmond, in Virginia— The Chesterfield Co^ 
field— Speculations respecting it . • • • 15o 



CoNCLCDiNQ Chapter 



164 



INTRODUCTION. 



The River Potomac, from its source to 
its moutli, in the great Bay of Chesapeake, 
divides the Atlantic frontier of the tjnited 
States of America into two unequal parts ; 
and being-, with the exception of the State 
of Maryland, the boundary betwixt the 
southern slave-holding states and the free 
states to the north, may be said to form a 
hne of demarcation betwixt their industrial 
pursuits, their laws, and their manners. 

To that portion which lies to the south 
of this line the attenion of travellers has 
been much less drawn than to that exten- 
sive division of the American Republic 
which lies to the north and west ; and it is 
to supply, to a certain extent, the want of 
information which exists respecting some 
portions of the southern states, that the 
author has drawn up the following pages. 

It was during an interesting tour in 
1834—1835 from the city of Washington 
to the frontier of Mexico, and whilst in one 
of the unfrequented and wild parts of the 
territory of Arkansas, that he communica- 
ted some account of those remote coun- 
tries, and the manners of the frontier set- 
tlers, to a distinguished scientific friend in 
London, which not long after led to the an- 
nouncement, by the late Mr. John Murray, 
of a work substantially the same as the 
present publication. But the author, who 
was at that time residing in the United 
States, had scarcely prepared it for the 
press, when he was induced, upon the ad- 
vice of some American friends of great re- 
spectability, to reconsider his intention of 
publishing. It was remarked to him, that 
however sincerely he might wish to avoid 
giving umbrage in any quarter, yet that the 
work contained some opinions, and the re- 
lation of some incidents, which could not 
at that time fail to irritate a powerful inter- 
est in the United- States, and might set him 
at variance with many esteemed friends. 
As this counsel came from a friendly and 
judicious quarter, he determined rather to 
suppress the work for a season, than to ex- 
punge the passages objected to ; and he 
was the less reluctant to make this sacri- 
fice, because, intending to return to his na- 
tive country, he could look forward to a 
period when he could express with perfect 
freedom any opinions that were on the side 
of humanity, of rational liberty, and the 
moral government of mankind. 

On his return to England in the spring of 
1839, his intention of devoting a portion of 
his time to the recording of a few of the in- 



cidents of a somewhat adventurous life, 
thirty-six years of which had been passed 
in various countries abroad, was again post- 
poned. Within two months after his ar- 
rival he was honoured by Her Majesty's 
government with the appointment of Com- 
missioner on the then existing boundary- 
dispute betwixt Gi'eat Britain and the Uni- 
ted States of America — an appointment, 
the official duties of which, if they had not 
engrossed all his attention, would, from ob- 
vious considerations, have rendered it at ; 
that time unadvisable to act upon his first 
intentions. 

Freed, at length, from that restraint, the 
author has again taken up his manuscript, 
•and having well considered the incidents 
and sentiments contained in it, and finding 
nothing there that can be deemed objec- 
tionable by those who are only desirous to 
have the truth placed before them, he has 
at length resolved upon its publication ; as- 
suring his readers that it is a faithful and 
almost literal transcription from his origi- 
nal journals, the incidents of the tour hav- 
ing always been noted from day to day, and 
the journal having been regularly written 
up at least once a week. 

That some of the opinions these incf- 
dents elicited at the time may not be re- 
ceived with the same favour by all those 
under whose notice they may come, is very 
likely to be the case ; for, in our day, the 
field of English literature embraces an ex- 
tensive and populous region of America, 
where sentiments are cherished respecting 
the rights of men, both black and white, 
that are diametrically opposed to them. 
The author, nevertheless, ventures to sub- 
mit to the candour of those transatlantic 
readers he may not have the good fortune 
to please, that in all countries where free- 
dom of opinion is not an illusion, but is real 
and substantial, there are acknowledged 
privileges which every fair writer can claim 
to enjoy, amongst the plainest of which are 
the describing truly what he sees, and the 
expressing freely, but not presumptuously, 
his opinions of what he has seen. 

Of the enterprise and industry of the peo- 
ple of the United States, of the wonderful 
progress they have made in material civi- 
lization, of the great beauty of their coun^ 
try, and of the many desirable things to be 
there admired and enjoyed, no one is dis- 
posed to bear more favourable testimony 
than the author : yet, however heartily an 
Englishman may be disposed to commend 



INTRODUCTION. 



tliese excellencies, so national and sensi- 
tive are the inhabitants of that young- coun- 
try, that if he ventures upon the invidious 
task of pointing out those peculiarities in 
the laws and nlanners of Republican Amer- 
ica which he cannot be brought to admire, 
he feels that he may not escape the impu- 
tation of intending to offend, even when he 
•would express in the most temperate lan- 
guage his opinions of what neither his taste 
nor his judgment can approve. This ex- 
treme sensitiveness — which is never awa- 
kened in America by the remarks of French 
or German writers— had its origin perhaps, 
with our transatlantic kinsmen, in their 
anxiety about an ideal perfection, of which, 
in virtue of their affinity to the mother- 
country, her laws, literature, and religion, 
that flattei-ed themselves they had attained 
the enjoyment. Looking at the delusion 
from that point, we can only regret that it 
ishould have deceived a people endowed 
with many eminent qualities, into a con- 
firmed habit of placing an estimate upon 
themselves, which has yet to receive the 
sanction of mankind. Sensible and amia- 
ble as many of the Americans are, the fa- 
vourable impression they make upon those 
who visit their country, is too soon over- 
powered by the characteristic illiberality 
of others who assume for it an excellence 
which admits of no criticism ; and so ex- 
acting is the tyranny of self-adulation, that, 
except in the most select society, the stran- 
ger is often compelled to be either a hypo- 
crite or a mute. 

If we were to condemn the American 
who visits England for denying that the su- 
perior civilization he witnesses there is 
to be attributed to our monarchy, our dis- 
tinctions in society, and the high moral ex- 
amples which are the result of our social 
institutions, he might with some reason 
consider us ill-bred and illiberal. Obvious 
as these truths might be to ourselves, he 
could not with propriety be asked to admit 
these consequences, since it would be to 
require him tacitly to condemn the coun- 
try which nursed him, and where he im- 
bibed all his cherished opinions. In the 
United States, however, it is not an imcom- 
mon thing for an Englishman to be told 
that his government is superannuated, cor- 
Tupt, and profligate ; and, indeed, the same 
sentiments are too often expressed in a 
3nore offensive manner even in the Con- 
gress.* Greatly as these extravagancies 
are to be deplored, and deserving of cen- 



* Vide Mr. Archer's speech, March 18, 1844. in the Sen- 
mte of the United States. "Mr. Archer repeated that he 
felt grieved and humiliated at the temper and the tone in 
■which gentlemen permitted themselves to speak hereof the 
Government of Great Britain. Mr. A. was not here tn vin- 
dicate that Government, but still less was he here to pour 
out upon it all the oblonuy and vituperation which our lan- 
guage could express, as the vilest and most faithless Gov- 
ernment under heaven. The nanie of England seemed as if 
it could never be uttered or referred to without some terms 
of obloquy or reproach." — National Intelligencer. 



sure as they are, yet they do not justify us 
in cherishing an undiscriminating dislike 
towards the inhabitants of the country 
where they are uttered, although they sug- 
gest many reflections upon the causes 
which have made the descendants of com- 
mon ancestors so dissimilar to each other. 

It is not to be concealed, nevertheless, 
that this frequent expression of aversion to 
the mother-country, added to the late noto- 
rious violations of the most solemn engage- 
ments from the same quarter, have raised 
a strong and deep-rooted prejudice on this 
side of the Atlantic, which, although natu- 
ral, is to a certain extent unjust, because 
there is little or no discrimination observed 
in it. The United States have not always 
deserved the reproaches they have now 
drawn upon themselves ; in the early part 
of the history of their government public 
decorum was highly valued and universally 
practised, and American credit only eight 
years ago stood as high all over the world 
as the credit of any other countpy. The 
change has been a great and an unhappy 
one both for America and for Europe, and 
if this were an occasion for tracing its 
causes step by step, the author, who has 
long watched its progress, would not de- 
spair of accomplishing the task. Suffice it 
to observe, at this time, that the sad degra- 
dation has been gradually produced through 
the arts of demagogues operating in tfie 
different States, rather than by the action 
of the federal government, which, although 
the constant object of political intrigue, has 
generally been administered with prudence 
and dignity. 

To trace all the incidents that character- 
ise the Americans at the present time to 
their remote sources, we should have to 
look, amongst other things, to their geo- 
graphical position, and to the period when 
their colonies were planted ; for all com- 
munities of men are distinguished from 
each other by peculiarities derived, more 
or less, from those institutions of govern- 
ment which local situation as well as ori- 
gin have imposed upon them. The Amer- 
icans, though descended from them, are 
very dissimilar to the English, and the de- 
scendants of our settlers in New Zealand 
will be far from resembling the Americans. 
In the early part of the seventeenth centu- 
ry the exclusive object of the mother-coun- 
try in colonizing foreign countries, was to 
open sources of wealth without reference 
to those principles which make them per- 
manently conducive to human happiness ; 
but in our own days the acquisition of that 
which constitutes real wealth is largely 
understood to depend upon just laws and 
good government both at home and abroad : 
in forming the character, therefore, of a 
colonial people with a view to bind them 
in interests and in affection to the mother- 
country, everything now seems to depend 



INTRODUCTION. 



upon the early establishment of wise laws 
for the protection of the best interests of 
society, and upon rehgious education. 
Where these blessings prevail, true liberty 
and tranquil enjoyment of life are most 
sure to be found ; and where they do not, 
and human liberty is left to itself, unre- 
strained by religious feeling, an insolent 
and bombastic nature is liable to be gen- 
erated, which makes a people the tools of 
their own blind passions, and obliterates 
all reverence for the great objects which 
good men believe to be the true end of ex- 
istence. It is this abuse of liberty which has 
so greatly changed the character of a peo- 
ple eminently fitted for greatness by their 
natural qualities ; has led them to trample 
under foot the wise precepts of the most 
illustrious founders of their republic, to re- 
ject many of the lessons of rational free- 
dom which have been ever before them, to 
barter their invaluable privileges with a 
demagogical despotism, for the magnilo- 
quent, but empty, designation of " Sover- 
eign People," and to prepare a future for 
their country which seems to baffle con- 
jecture. 

Those in America who are so prover- 
bially sensitive at every expression which 
appears to criticise in the slightest degree 
the country they love, or which tends to 
abate the pretensions — long set up, and ac- 
quiesced in by so many— of its " never be- 
ing in the wrong," are always dissatisfied 
with any thing short of unqualified eulo- 
gium upon themselves and their country, 
and are not apt to pardon the truth. This 
would be matter of some regret to the au- 
thor, if he did not know that the good and the 
wise of their own country are united in the 
condemnation of what he has animadverted 
upon : amongst them are many to whom he 
would be very averse to give offence : pain- 
ful indeed would it be to him if any of those 
excellent persons, whose friendship he was 
proud of during a thirty years' residence 
amongst them as an Englishman, should 
imagine that he is capable, now or at any 
time, of passing an indiscriminate censure 
upon their nation, and of uniting with oth- 
ers in the condemnation of all, for that 
which has been conspicuous only with a 
portion of their countrymen. 

This too general prejudice, however, 
does unfortunately exist in Europe, and 
has grown to a fearful height in conse- 
quence of the violation of those pecuniary 
engagements which have been already al- 
luded to ; delinquencies which, either from 
want of information or from resentment, 
have created a strong prejudice against the 
whole frame of American society. But 
let us be just! Reprehensible as these 
.acts are, there are exceptions to them 
which deserve the highest praise, and 
which in the general indignation have 
been almost entirely overlooked. The 



world, it is true, has seen the opulent free 
State of Pennsylvania, and the productive 
slave State of Mississippi, two common- 
wealths arrogating to themselves the lofty 
distinction of " enlightened Sovereign 
States," declining in one instance to pro- 
vide the interest of the moneys they have 
borrowed from their confiding creditors, 
and refusing in the other even to acknowl- 
edge their responsibilities ; not from ina- 
bility, but because there is no human law 
to compel them to be honest. Yet when 
the just scorn of mankind is expressed 
against them, it ought not to be forgotten 
that Massachusetts, New York, Kentucky, 
Ohio, Tennessee, and other indebted States, 
have resolutely maintained their credit un- 
der the most difficult circumstances, and 
have placed themselves in honourable con- 
tradistinction to their unscrupulous neigh- 
bours. 

These violations of the confidence which 
the so-called securities of the fraudulent 
States had acquired in Europe, in conse- 
quence of the known resources of these 
last, and of the specious circumstances un- 
der which the first had been palmed upon 
the unsuspecting, were preceded by the 
plunder and waste of the whole resources 
of the Bank of the United States, incor- 
porated by the legislature of Pennsylvania 
with a capital of thirty-five millions of dol- 
lars, a great portion of which was owned 
in Great Britain. Then came Repudiation, 
or the doctrine that the acts of one legis- 
lature, and even of one generation, are not 
binding upon the next ; a doctrine which, 
though it had its origin with Mr. Jefferson, 
was first promulgated in Pennsylvania.* 
Precedents so pernicious, coming from 
one of the oldest and most opulent States 
in the Union, unfortunately tei^hpted other 
members of the Federal Union possessing 
fewer resources, to follow in the same dis- 
reputable course ; and thus was com- 
promised in the end the reputation of the 
whole republic. 

Nor is this the only penalty which re- 
publican America pays for her departure 
from integrity : these unexpected infringe- 
ments of public faith, and the manner in 
which they have been defended, have call- 
ed forth into greater relief the change of 
opinion which has been gradually taking 
place in Europe, in relation to the moral 
influence which cheap republican govern- 
ments were supposed likely to acquire with 
the coming generations of men in all civil- 
ized countries. Experience, which is the 
only safe guide of men, has now shown 
that, when ostentatiously applied to great 
countries for the purpose of flattering and 
leading the many, they call into operation 



* A convention wiis hold there a few years ajo to remodel 
the constitution, at which a very strong- jiarty— headed by a 
leadin? member of the present Congress — apperircd in fa- 
vour of nancelling all incorporations, and all contracts that 
were opposed to '• first principles." 



INTRODUCTION. 



more corruption, and lead to a more rapid 
degeneracy than can be possibly exhibited 
under governmentsf where power is con- 
fided to those who have the greatest stake 
in the preservation of order, and who have 
been trained to the responsibility of exer- 
cising it for the benefit of the many. In- 
deed, so complete has been this change in 
the public opinion of Europe, that the ex- 
ample par excellence, which the admirers of 
a republican form of government once held 
up to the admiration of mankind, has al- 
ready become a beacon to the civilized 
world, to warn all future generations 
against those theories of government in 
which the public welfare is not based upon 
that solid and enduring foundation for the 
government of a State — a constant selec- 
tion of men of character and property for 
its administration. 

But here again a want of discrimination 
in the judgment that has been formed of 
the American people is equally apparent : 
almost all those who have not knovvn them 
in their own country attribute to them, alike, 
a general degeneracy ; than which nothing 
can be more unjust, since it excludes from 
well-merited praise those patriotic men 
who have constantly endeavoured to give 
a salutary direction to the administration 
of the public affairs of their country — men 
who have long been, and who yet remain, 
the victims of those demagogues to whom 
their peculiar system of government has 
given a preponderating influence. 

No re-spectable person who has travelled 
much in America is ignorant that in every 
town, and in almost every part of the coun- 
try, there are individuals distinguished from 
the rest by education, manners, hospitali- 
ty, and the possession of many of those 
high quali'ties which make men truly re- 
spectable in all countries, and render them 
valuable acquaintances to the stranger who 
has the advantage of knowing them. But 
these excellent persons, with exceptions so 
few that that they are scarcely worth enu- 
merating, are rarely participators in the gov- 
ernment of their country ; for, where the 
popular party predominates, they are ex- 
cluded by the possession of those very 
qualifications that fit them for that high 
purpose ; so seldom is it that a candidate 
placed before the " Sovereign People," 
without any other recommendation than 
his fitness, is not rejected. 

It would be going too far to assert that 
this evil condition of things is, without 
some qualification, to be necessarily attrib- 
uted to a republican form of government , 
because, even in the instance of the United 
States, it has not always existed. In 1806, 
when the author first visited that part of 
America, it was a very happy country. 
The bright examples which had exercised 
so beneficent an influence at the origin of 
the government, were not then forgotten. 



The moral dignity of Washington, the wis- 
dom of Franklin, the integrity of Jay, and 
thevirtuesof many of their contemporaries, 
some of whom were then living, were j-et 
revered by the people. A breach of de 
corum in the Congress, if it was not un- 
known in those days, was at least sure to 
be met by public reprobation ; and in the 
State legislatures there was always a ma- 
jority of individuals selected by their con- 
stituents from among the most respecta- 
ble members of society : at that time, in- 
deed, in the State of New York, which has 
always had a preponderating influence in 
the Union from its population and wealth, 
a property qualification was required by 
the constitution both foj the Senate and 
the House of Assembly. 

In treating of this important subject it is 
not to be forgotten that in an evil hour 
(1821) for that Commonwealth, and for the 
Union, a few experienced demagogues, at 
a period when the members of the legisla- 
ture had not been delegated for that pur- 
pose, contrived the authorisation of a con- 
vention of the people, to consider some 
fundamental changes in its constitution. 
There, playing upon the hopes and fears 
of some of those from whom an inflexible 
opposition was expected, and overcoming 
by their arts the reluctance that was mani- 
fested to enter upon the never-ending chain 
of evil consequences which invariably at- 
tend improvident concessions, these wily 
agitators succeeded in converting the mob 
into a constituency, by establishing '' Uni- 
versal Suffrage," that fatal principle which 
has been the leading cause of the prevail- 
ing degeneracy. 

Those who have been in a highly popu- 
lous country, where universal sufi'rage and 
frequent elections — ostensibly held for the 
preservation of liberty — prevail, can best 
understand how easy it is to make the 
" Sovereign People," a mere Ochlocratic* 
machine in the hands of skilful dema- 
gogues ; or with what facility good men 
are made odious to the masses, and gov- 
ernment and society disorganised for the 
purpose of plundering them. Armed with 
this irresistible power, demagogues find no 
difficulty in perverting those principles in 
free constitutions which are intended for 
the moral and civil protection of society, 
or in excluding talents accompanied with 
education, integrity, and wealth from the 
service of the public. It is to the fatal sub- 
stitution of universal suff'rage for character 
and property, and the general departure 
from the enlightened and honest intentions 
of Washington and the other illustrious 
founders of their republic, that we must at- 
tribute the introduction into America of 
that wild, democratic, mannerless, and 
tyrannical rule, both in the constituency 



From oxKos, a mob. 



INTRODUCTION 



IX 



and its leaders, which promises no repose 
for the present, and little hope for the fu- 
ture. The friends of order may, indeed, 
rally from time to time, but it is to be fear- 
ed that it will be only when the excesses 
of their opponents have created a tempo- 
rary disgust : these, indeed, may be driven 
from power for a while, but as long as uni- 
versal suffrage exists, the vigilance of 
demagogues will never sleep, and the same 
scenes will ever be enacted over and over 
again. 

This experiment, therefore, of dignify- 
ing the masses with the title of " Sovereign 
People," and of attempting to provide for 
the well-being of society by cheap republi- 
can government founded upon a theoretical 
equality in the privileges of men, if it is to 
be judged of by the results which have al- 
ready appeared, is a signal and instructive 
failure, such as must attend every scheme 
which permits the ignorant to govern the 
wise, and transfers the rule which Nature 
intended for the head to the inferior ex- 
tremities of the body politic. 

How instructive is this lesson to the 
other governments of Christendom ! and 
how interesting to ourselves, who had 
hoped for some contributions to the com- 
mon cause of rational liberty from the hap- 
py opportunities which America had so 
long enjoyed I The melancholy truth 
seems too apparent, that when a people 
reject the experience of the past, cast aside 
the guidance of the wise and the virtuous, 
and commit their honour and prosperity to 
the tumultuous passions of the multitude, 
they are sure to descend in the scale of true 
civilization more rapidly than they rose. 

Deep as is the regret which this eminent 
failure has caused to the sincere friends 
of civil liberty, it is immensely increased 
when they see how glorious an opportuni- 
ty the United States have lost of enlighten- 
ing the new-born republican governments 
of South America. The disadvantages un- 
der which the old Spanish colonies assumed 
their independence were great, and the 
struggle to sustain their self-government 
in an honourable manner was often sin- 
cere, though seldom successful : if they 
had been cheered on by a great example 
of wise government, and scrupulous fideli- 
ty t'> their engagements, on their own con- 
tinent, the United States might have had 
the glory of effecting for their sister re- 
publics what Great Britain has so well 
done, in the sphere within which she has 
moved, for the general interests of man- 
kind ; and have shown that " Liberty," 
without rehgion, morality, and honesty to 
guard it from desecration, is but a delu- 
sion ; and that extent of territory gives no 
power to a nation that she can exercise in 
an efficient manner, unless she cherishes 
those duties which alone acquire for a peo- 
ple the respect of mankind. 



The author is aware that these reflec- 
tions may appear superfluous to some of 
his readers in the introduction to a work 
which does not aspire to be of a particu- 
larly serious character. He has been led 
into them, not from a desire to aggravate 
the discontent which is now so generally 
expressed, but to abate it by turning the 
attention of his readers to some circum- 
stances which have not been sufficiently 
adverted to, viz., that the American peo- 
ple were misled at an early period of their 
self-government :* that whilst the cause of 
these evils, which have attracted universal 
attention, is to be found in that excess of 
liberty which in America has degenerated 
iuto licence, yet that the good and the wise 
there have stood up manfully in the cause 
of rational freedom : that although some 
of the States have acted in a dishonoura- 
ble manner, the greater proportion of them 
have been faithful to tfleir engagements ; 
and, finally, from a wish to state that if we 
encourage the prejudices which have been 
excited indiscriminately against all, by re- 
fusing our sympathies to those who are 
so eminently entitled to them, we only 
increase the evil, and dispose those to 
estrange themselves, whom we have the 
justest reasons to draw near to us. 

The author also is glad to add his opin- 
ion, that there are good reasons for believ- 
ing, that all the States which are defaulters 
will ere long provide for the due fulfilment 
of their obligations : their resources are 
great and are continually increasing, and 
the false step they have taken of destroy- 
ing their own credit is now the main cause 
of their embarrassments ; this they have 
been made clearly to feel, so that they have 
nothing to hope for their credit, either ux 
their own country or in Europe, but by re- 
turning to the sti-aight road from which 
they havedeviated. 

There is also another bright and encour- 
aging spot on the horizon ; for if any faith 
is to be placed in prognostics, the Uni-tcd 
States ere long will come under the ad- 
ministration of a chief magistrate, the in- 
fluence of whose character will win back 
for his country the credit which she has 
temporarily lost. The whole civilized 
world is concerned in the wish that that 
salutary influence may be lasting, and 
throw into obscurity all the errors of the 
past. 

No one is more sincere in that wish than 
the author. To those in America who 
may be disposed to put an unfriendly con- 
struction upon anything that has escaped 
his pen, he can only say that they do him 
injustice, for he is beyond that period of 
life when he could be indifferent to the re- 
flection that he had purposely uttered opin- 



* In the last chapter of this work a sketch will be given 
of one of the fundamental causes of their deviation from 
their ancient character. 



INTRODUCTION. 



ions which were unjust to any individual, 
ortoanycommunity of men amongst whom 
he has lived. His justification with those 
to whom the free expression of some of 
his opinions may not be grateful, is, that 
errors of government which lead to injuri- 
ous changes in the conduct and character 
of a people, form a subject deeply interest- 



ing to England, especially at a moment 
when so many new settlements are being 
planted by her ; and that his remarks not 
benig the result of theoretical considera- 
tions, he felt that he owed it as a duty to 
his country to speak of what he had seen, 
and of what he had carefully observed. 



TRAVELS IN THE SLAVE STATES 



NORTH AMERICA, 



CHAPTER I. 

Barnum's Hotel at Baltimore — Canvas-back Ducks — Soft 
Crabs ; the process of changing their shells— Railroad to 
Frederictnn in Maryland — Impositions practised upon 
Travellers— Notices of the Geology of the Country— Har- 
per's-ferry ; the Shenandoah Valley — Nationality of the 
Germanico- Americans. 

Any one who has endured for many days the 
filth and discomfort of that caravansary called 
Gailshj/s Hold at Washingion, the city of "mag- 
nificent distances," will feel exceedingly rejoi- 
•ced when, after a short interval of two or three 
iionrs. lie finds himself transferred hy the rail- 
road lo Barnum's at Baltimore. If there is an 
liotel-keeper in the United States who merits 
the commendations of a traveller, the veteran 
Mr. Barnum may claim to be that person. His 
neat private parlours and bed-rooms, his quiet 
house, his excellent table, and the ready and 
obliging attendance found there, leave the trav- 
eller little to desire. 

It was at Barnum's, many, many years ago, 
m tlie opening of the winter, that I made my 
fir.st essay upon what is universally allowed to 
l)e|the greatest of all delicacies in the United 
Stales, the Caimis-fiack duck — an exemplary 
bird, which seems to take, — sua sponle, — the 
most indefatigable pains to qualify himself for a 
favourable reception in the best society : for in 
the first instance be makes himself exceedingly 
fat by resorting to the low marshy lands of the 
■Susquehannah and the borders of those streams 
which are tributary to it, to feed upon the ripe 
seed of the Zitanta aqualica, a sort of wild rice 
which abounds there ; and then at the proper 
season betakes himself to an esculent root 
growing in the sedgy banks of the rivers, to 
give the last finish to the tenderness, the juici- 
ness, and the delicate flavour which distinguish 
him above all other birds when brought to table. 
But justice must be done to him by an able ar- 
tist, or, great as his intrinsic qualities are, he 
may be reduced to a condition that entitles hiin 
even to be pitied by the humble scavenger-duck. 

I had heard a great deal of this inestimable 
bird before it was presented to me under the 
auspices of Barnum, and was somewhat sur- 
prised and disappointed at seeing him place on 
the table, with great solemnity, a couple of 
birds on a dish without a single drop of gravy in 
it. Now every one knows that a quantum suff 
of good gravy is to English rotis what fine sun- 
ny weatiier is to the incidents of life, enabling 
them to pass along smoothly and pleasantly ; 
and, therefore, as soon as I had a little recover- 
ed from my alarm, I could not help telling Bar- 
num that I was afraid I should not like his can- 
vas-backs. Upon which, asking my permission, 
he took up the carving-knife, and making two 



incisions in the fat breasts of the birds, the dish 
instantly became filled with the desired fluid. 
Had I not seen this, I could not have believed 
it ! Then came the action of the rt.r.hauffoirs, 
the dismemberment of the birds scarcely warm- 
ed through at the fire, the transference of their 
delicate flesh to our hot plates, and its recon- 
coction in their own gravy, with currant jelly, 
a soupcon of chateau margeaux, and a small 
quantity of fine loaf sugar. We were three of 
us to these two birds, and the great Barnum 
had the satisfaction of hearing us declare that 
the only defect they had consisted in their not 
being of the size of turkeys. 

Certainly this dish well deserves its great 
reputation, and it is greatly to be regretted that 
the genius of the hermit of the Chaussee d'An- 
tin has never been inspired by it. 

But although the period at which the tour 
commenced, which will be narrated in these 
pages, was not that of Canvas-back ducks, still 
my family and myself, on leaching Barnum's 
from Washington, towards the end of July, 1834, 
found that the season for soft crabs was not yet 
over, and that this is a dish of very great mer- 
it, and little known in Europe. The crab, in 
the United States, resorts in the early summer 
months to the low shores of the rivers and bays 
between the 38th and 39lh degrees of north lat- 
itude, to discard its shell, in order to take an- 
other more suited to its increasing size. The 
process of throwing otTits shell is one which I 
have often witnessed in all its stages, towards 
the mouth of the Potomac river, and in various 
parts of that great estuary the Chesapeake bay. 
There these Crustacea are seen during the sum- 
iner months in countless numbers, and of all 
sizes, half buried in the mud, undergoing a se- 
vere operation, which Nature, consistently with 
the simplicity of all her works, has curiously 
and appropriately adapted them to. When the 
calcareo-mucous matter which exudes from 
their bodies begins to rise, and to force the 
shell a little upwards, the animal instinctively 
seeks the low shores, as a place of refuge 
against the voracious inhabitants of the rivers, 
that would otherwise prey upon it when divest- 
ed of its armour. In a short time the sutures 
of the shells begin to relax, and the edible parts 
to be separated from them by the intervention 
of the mucous matter. When all is ready for 
the great struggle, the animal makes its exer- 
tion, and gradually bucks out, leaving the shell 
behind, and sometimes with the loss of a claw 
or two. The operation being over, the crab ap- 
pears to be entirely exhausted, and is nothing 
but a soft unresisting mass, prostrate in the 
mud. But it gradually reacquires strength ; 
mucous matter is constantly secreting and com- 



12 



IN AMERICA. 



ins to '!if5 surfao' <).;,, b liy. \>.;iriv a h.U>\vI}' 
indurates, and lakes a crustaceous appearance. 
In this stage, wliiLst the shell is exceedingly 
soft, and the aninna! is flattering itself with get- 
ting into a convalescent state, it is too often its 
fate to be picked up and forwarded to Mr. Bar- 
num, who serves it up fried with so much nice- 
ty, that the epicure is able, with peculiar satis- 
faction, to eat every portion of this savoury 
dish, especially including the nice crisp shell. 
This delicacy we found at Barnum's on our ar-' 
rival, and all of us united in expressing our ad- 
miration of it. 

At this comfortable hotel, then, my family and 
myself remained several days, making prepara- 
tions for a tour to the Virginia Springs, in the 
Alleghany mountains, which are watering-pla- 
ces of great celebrity in the Southern States, 
not only on account of their curative qualities, 
but because they are resorted to by the families 
of many opulent planters south and west of the 
Potomac. Here I proposed leaving my wife a 
short time for the benefit of her health ; whilst 
my son and myself, pursuing the eastern flank 
of the Alleghany mountains as far as we could, 
should continue our geological tour west of the 
Mississippi to the Mexican frontier. 

Everything being ready for our departure, at 
five o'clock A.M., on the 1st of August, we ex- 
changed our precious comforts at Barnum's for 
the confusion of a wretched dirty omnibus that 
was to convey us to the railroad station, on our 
way to Fredericton in Maryland, distant sixty 
miles. In the hurry of the moment, when — 
with our eyes scarcely more than half open — 
there were so many things to look after, a small 
chest of chemical tests, which I had been pre- 
paring with great care, and some of the materi- 
als of which I had obtained from Philadelphia, 
was snatched up by one of the people, and strap- 
ped on very insecurely behind with the trunks. 
Before we had proceeded 150 yards from the 
hotel, I saw this object of my anxieties come 
tumbling down on the stones, and calling to the 
Driver, he alighted and brought it to me, adding 
with his characteristic twang, that it had the 
" most onconceivable smell I reckon I ever put 
my nose to." The first look was sufficient ; 
the whole concern appeared to be smashed, ev- 
erything was wet, and there was no remedy but 
to place it on the floor of the omnibus. " There 
goes the labour often days," said I in a piteous 
tone ; " the whole box dished, and no end to 
take hold of that is not reeking with muriatic 
and nitric acid !" This was literally the fact. 
There was enough in this incident to make a 
man believe in bad omens : it was Friday, and 
if we had stopped in Baltimore till Saturday, it 
was very clear, at any rate, that the accident 
would not have happened on a Friday. My son 
somewhat consoled me by suggesting, that per- 
haps those vials only were broken which could 
be the most easily supplied, and I resolved to 
chng to that hope. 

On our arrival at the station, we found that 
the deference which the railroad company af- 
fected to feel for the ladies and gentlemen who 
lodged at Barnum's, and for whose especial ac- 
commodation they had sent a dirty omnibus at 
an hour when it was impossible to procure a 
clean one, was in keeping with the other pro- 
fessions of those disinterested persons who live 



by conveying ladies and gentlemen to and fro 
in this bad world : instead of being comfortably 
placed in a clean car with birds of a like feath- 
er, we were most unceremoniously emptied into 
the last car, with a set of as unshaven, unprom- 
ising looking fellows as ever I was shut up with. 
Amongst the rest was a horrid, dirty, little 
humpbacked imp of the male kind, with a most 
malicious physiognomy, and as pert and forward 
as those unfortunate Jieings usually are when 
they have received their education in the streets. 
My wife was good naturedly disposed to submit 
to every inconvenience but this ; the sight of 
this object perfectly horrified her, and she could 
think of nothing but the misery of sitting in the 
same car with this creature for sixty miles. Pla- 
cing myself betwixt him and her, with the un- 
fortunate test-box under my seat, this little 
creature perceiving me rather solicitous about 
it, ill-naturedly kicked it away, when it occa- 
sionally came in the way of his feet ; but I had 
my revenge without taking much trouble, for he 
contrived to empty what remained of the acids 
into a little pool beneath him, and there, to my 
somewhat satisfaction, he sat with his shoes in 
them. We stopped to breakfast at Ellicot's 
mills, a ceremony which gave a turn to our 
thoughts ; and finding that Humpy Dumpy was 
not going any farther, and that the weather was 
going to be fine, we became more reconciled to 
our situation : I therefore mounted the top of 
the rail-car, and kept my ground there in tha 
teeth of a column of smoke loaded with sulphu- 
retted hydrogen, proceeding from the pyritical 
coals of the furnace, which the wind frequently 
urged upon me. 

This railroad is laid in a very interesting ra- 
vine, through which the river Patapsco flows 
over its bed, consisting of granite and other pri- 
mary beds. I was delighted at being wheeled 
with the velocity of a locomotive through a sin- 
gularly picturesque road, where such a variety 
of primitive rocks presented themselves. At 
Marriotsville, 13 miles from Ellicot's, the beds 
became more fissile, and clay slate occasionally 
appeared, but gneiss was the general rock ; and 
at Sykesville, four miles farther, where we stoj)- 
ped a short time, I found it contained small but 
very transparent garnets. Farther on, at Mori-" 
rovia, we came upon micaceous slate ; after 
which the country to Fredericton became less . 
uneven, and we passed many well-cultivated 
farms, a band of limestone running through the 
district, of which the farmers are beginning to 
avail themselves as a manure. At Fredericton 
we got to a tolerably good inn, and here my first 
care was to overhaul my case of tests. One 
large phial of refined alcohol was broken, as well 
as one flint-glass phial of nitric acid and one of 
muriatic acid. The labels were obliterated from 
the other phials, and all the caoutchouc cover- 
ings to the ground stoppers eaten off. Upon 
applying to a Mr. Elliot, a druggist of the place, 
he not only most obligingly assisted me to re- 
pair my misfortune, but refused to receive any 
compensation. Considering it, therefore, a good 
rule to keep up an account-current of good turns 
and evil turns with mankind, I set off the good 
deeds of worthy Mr. Elliot against the evil ones 
of the fellow who had not strapped the case on 
well, and against the malice of little Humpy, 
and closed the account. But I had to open it 
very soon again. 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



13 



At Baltimore I had paid to the agent of Stock 
ton and Stokes our fare all the way to Harper's- 
ferry, on the river Potomac, and had had the 
prudent precaution to take a receipt, in which 
it was stated that I was to he forwarded to 
Harper's- ferry on that day. This the agent of 
the company at Fredericton — a forward, imper- 
tinent fellow — now refused to do. He swore it 
was all a mistake; that I had not paid enough, 
and he " reckoned what o?ider arth I could want 
him to do it for, when he had no stage nor no 
horses, no more than if there ivas no such 
things to do it with." As I saw he was likely 
to he as obstinate as he was insolent, I got the 
landlord at the inn to send for another fellow, 
just as great a cheat as the agent ; and having 
ascertained from him what his lowest terms 
were for a stage-coach and four horses to Har- 
per's-ferry, I took him to the agent, and told 
him if he thought the price too high, he must 
now say so, as his employers would have to re- 
fund it to me, for I was determined to go on. 
This move on rny part brought him, as the 
landlord very quaintly remarked, " to a non- 
plush ;" he saw that my remedy against his 
employers was a good one, and that further ob- 
stinacy might cost him his place ; so, cursing 
and swearing and vapouring about, and decla- 
ring that lie never did meet with '• sich a onrea- 
sonable parson" as myself, he at length pro- 
duced a stage-coach and four horses for the 
next 20 miles to the Potomac. If I had not ta- 
ken a receipt, stating that I was to be conduct- 
ed to Harper's-ferry on that same day, there 
would have been no remedy for me, and I 
should have been cheated out of the money ; 
for the agent would have charged his employ- 
ers for forwarding me, and would have put the 
money in his own pocket. 

We had an agreeable drive across the Cotoc- 
tin mountain, a slaty chain in advance of what 
is called the Blue Ridge ; and passing the bridge 
thac crosses the Potomac, reached Harper's- 
ferry before sunset, which gave me time to look 
at the gorge through which the Potomac jias 
worn its channel, and of which Mr. JetTerson, 
in his Notes on Virginia, has spoken in some- 
what extravagant terms. The Potomac is 
shallow here, and is joined at Harper's-ferry by 
the Shenandoah, a very pretty stream, from the 
■\y£st. 

It would seem to be a sufficient answer to 
those who have expressed an opinion that the 
beds of mountain streams and the 'passages 
which rivers make through chains of mountains 
have been originally formed by fissures which 
preceded the rivers, that the fissures are not 
found beneath the general level of the bottoms 
of the streams, and that the bottoms correspond 
to form one general plane of descent to the 
ocean. But independent of this objection to 
such an hypothesis, it can be shown that al- 
most all the phenomena connected with these 
mountain channels bear direct testimony to the 
opinion that these channels have been worn by 
the rivers themselves ; and perhaps there is no 
district m the world which contains more stri- 
king proofs of this than the Alleghany mount- 
ains, in which the sources of two great classes 
of rivers are found, those which empty them- 
selves into the Atlantic, and those which flow 
into the Gulf of Mexico. 



We left Harper's-ferry at the break of day. 
The issue of the Shenandoah from the gorge 
through which it flows is very grand. The 
rocks, composed of talcose slate, greenstone, 
liornblendic and other vpry ancient slaty mate- 
rials, jut over, in bold ledges, from the lofty and 
craggy sides of the valley. To the left the 
mountain is covered with forest-trees growing 
amidst the crags, and beneath runs the pretty 
river murmuring through the glen, in which the 
rifle-manufactories of the government of the 
United States are situated, the wheels of which ; 
were creaking at this early hour, a pleasing si 
proof of the industry that prevails here, i As^ 
soon as we had got well out of the primary 
rocks of the Blue Ridge, we came, at about two 
miles from Harper's-ferry, upon the limestone, 
occasionally alternating with slate, of the great 
valley of the Shenandoah, which is in some pla- 
ces about 30 miles broad. We stopped at 
Smithsfield, 15 miles from the Potomac, to 
breakfast ; but I neither found any fossils in 
the rock, nor could learn of any having been 
found in that neighbourhood. It appears, how- 
ever, to be contemporaneous with some of the 
limestone formations of the state of New York, 
and to belong to the series subjacent to the old 
red sandstone, which Mr. Murchison is at this 
time engaged in the classification of in England, 
with a perseverance and ability that promise the 
most brilliant and unexpected results respecting 
that portion of the geological column hitherto 
only obscurely known to us as the transition 
formations.* 

Just as we had risen from our meal, up drove 
the stage from Boonsborough, with no less a 
personage in it than our little hunchback of the 
day before. He looked so much like an imp in 
disguise, sent by the father of evil to accompany 
and annoy me wherever I went, that I felt a 
sudden compunction come upon me as soon as 
I saw him, on account of the nitric acid. Per- 
haps his hoof had been injured by it ! He came 
up to me, too, with the greatest possible famil- 
iarity, and with a devilish impudence, that put 
all sympathy for him out of the question. With 
this dirty creature we had to travel to Winches- 
ter, 15 miles, for, to our great dismay, he got 
nto our stage ; and, indeed, if he had got upon 
my back, as the old man established himself 
upon the shoulders of Sinbad, I should not have 
been exceedingly surprised, so completely as- 
tounded was I at his unexpected appearance. 
The road was very rough and knobby, occa- 
sioned by the cropping out of the edges of the 
limestone strata, over which we were travelling } 
at right angles, and which dipped very rapidly { 
to the east. The excessive jolting of the stage- I 
coach kept everything upon the rock ; the dri- j 
ver urged his horses as if he were possessed by I 
a fiend, and we were obliged to hold on by the ^ 



* Mr. Murchison's great work, 'The Silurian System,' 
did not appear until 1839, seven years after he had engaged 
in the investigation of the strata comprehended in it. But 
as early as 1833, the year before this tour was made, he 
had communicated to me the progress he was making, and 
his first synopsis of the formations he had succeeded in re- 
ducing to their natural order ; so that I was enabled, at the 
earliest moment, to apply the information I received from 
him to my own geological researches in North America ; 
and subsequently, in 1836, to publish a Tabular View of 
Rocks arranged upon Mr. Murchison's plan, and point out, 
for the first time, American localities which justified the 
extension of the Silurian System to North America. 



14 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



stage-coach to keep our seats : as to little 
Humpy Dumpy, he was tossed up and down 
like a shuttlecock, and at last got into a perma- 
nent hideous grin, whether of satisfaction or 
pain it was impossible to tell ; but it ended by 
establishing one with us of a less equivocal 
kind, for we got into a most irrepressible fit of 
laughter, which I believe broke the spell, and 
our dread of Gobbo was at length lost in the 
amusement he afforded us. 

Winchester is a neat, substantial town, with 
some good cultivation about it : from thence 
we contmued — without Gobbo — 13 miles to 
Middlelon to dinner. The crops of Indian corn 
on the route were good, and the horned cattle 
larger and in better condition than those I had 
seen in Maryland ; but they were a mongrel 
breed, and, indeed, there is nothing like improve- 
ment visible in this part of the country in any 
kind of live stock. The Blue Ridge was in 
sight on our left, and in half an hour after leav- 
ing Middleton we came abreast of what is call- 
ed the Massonetto mountain, a singularly beau- 
tiful elevation of limestone in the shape of a 
fork, the prongs lying to the north-east and the 
handle to the south-west, conforming with the 
general strike of the strata in the Aileghanies. 
This mountain, which stretches about 70 miles 
northeast and south-west, sinks at the south 
into hummocks and slopes. The valley, between 
the two forks, is somewhat cultivated, as I was 
informed, and has a small stream running 
through it, called Passage Greek, which empties 
into the Shenandoah. Ammonites and trilobites 
have been procured near this creek The dis- 
tance of the two prongs from each other, at the 
north, IS about six miles, and the north and 
south branches of the Shenandoah run on each 
side of ihe mountain, which, towards the south- 
west, is, as I was told, about two miles broad 
at the top I was further informed, that slates 
alternated with the limestone in parts of this 
interesting monument of ancient geological ac- 
tion, which has thus modified the uniformity of 
this valley. 

From Middleton to Woodstock, a distance of 
17 miles, we travelled across the edges of the 
strata ; the road being altogether upon the bare 
rocks, and the violent motion of the stage-coach 
almost past enduring : the country, however, 
was picturesque ; we had the Massonetto on 
our left, and a broad ridge of the Aileghanies 
on our right ; but we were extremely glad to 
arrive at Woodstock, where we found attentive 
people and tolerable accommodations. 

At dawn of day we were all in the stage 
again ; and, after travelling three or four miles, 
we came to the place called " the Narrow Pas- 
sage," where the road passes over a natural ter- 
race of blue compact limestone, with a base 
about 200 feet wide at the bottom, tapering up 
to 20 feet in width at the top. On the south 
cide the wail of this terrace is about 120 feet 
higli, and is washed at the bottom by the north 
fork of the Shenandoah, whilst the wall on the 
north side is only 96 feet high, and is washed 
by a small creek called Narrow Passage Creek, 
wliich joins the Shenandoah to the north east 
of this singular terrace. When standing on the 
top, the streams on each side can be perceived, 
and it would be difficult to understand the phe- 
nomenon without a careful investigction. Hav- 



ing established a good understanding with the 
driver, he very obligingly gave me, as he called 
it, "half an hour's law," which enabled me to 
examine every part of it. After a drive of 13 
miles we stopped at Mount Jackson to breakfast. 
This valley is principally settled with Ger- 
man people, some of whom are quite opulent. 
The villagers, too, seemed all well to do in the 
world, and have abundant means of mailing 
travellers comfortable. It is said, however, 
they have not always the disposition, being very 
national, and quite indifferent about those who 
are not of their race, I found the little Germait 
which 1 spoke of great advantage to me he.e ; 
" Wie gehts main lieber," accompanied with a 
hearty shake of the hand, operated as a talis- 
man, and we certainly had nothing to complaia 
of It produced us a good and welcome break- 
fast at Mount Jackson, at which we were joined 
by two actors and two actresses, who were giv- 
ing entertainments to these little German set- 
tlements, and g-- and concerts, according to their 
bills. They got into the stage-coai;h after 
breakfast, and rode with us seven miles to New- 
market, where they had an engagement to per- 
form the next day, admittance being 25 cents, 
or a quarter of a dollar. We found them very 
civil people, and possessed of a great deal of 
good sense. They said they succeeded tolera- 
bly well, that the people were kind to tiiem, and 
that they managed to save some money. There 
was also an intelligent sort of person in the 
stage-coach, who was born in this valley, and 
was a nephew to one of the richest farmers ; 
he had had the good fortune, however, to be 
sent to receive his education at a college ia 
Pennsylvania, and was now a man of some in- 
formation. He gave me a deplorable account 
of the ignorance and superstition of the German 
settlers of this fine valley, where, according to 
his account, human dullness could not be car- 
ried much further. He said, that with few ex- 
ceptions, they all believed in witchcraft to this 
day, and that, only last year, the country people 
refused to come to Mount Jackson with eggs 
and other products of their farms, because a 
strange dog, with a wild look, had been hunting 
in the neighbourhood for some days, and had 
driven some cattle into the Shenandoah, ft 
was universally agreed by thein that this dog 
was the devil ; and a young lawyer, who was 
not disposed to tranquillize his neighbours, had 
gone so far as to say that he had met him one 
evening in his natural shape, with two eyes of 
flaming fire, and each of them larger than his 
head. Upon this Hans determined not to stir 
from home, and the markets continued to be 
bad as long as the dog was known to be about. 
Our fellow-passenger also told me. that an old 
uncle of his, who was worth 80,000 dollars, 
asked him, when he returned from college, 
what he had learnt there that he could not have 
learnt at the German school. His nephew told 
him, that, amongst other things, he had learnt 
thai the sun did not go round the world, but 
that it stood still, and the world went round it. 
Upon which the old man said, "You dink so, 
because de beobles at the college tells you so, 
i)Ul I doesn't dink so, pecause I knows petter, 
and I ought to know petter" 

In the neighbourhood of Mount Jackson we 
passed a very beautiful farm, with extensive 



TRAVELS IN AxMEKlCA. 



15 



rich low grounds, owned by a Gfrmaii cattle- 
feeder and drover, of the name of Sternbergor, 
who is said to be worth 300,000 dollars. These 
Germans, like their brethren in Pennsylvania, 
are plodding, frugal persons, who hoard their 
profits in hard money, entertain a great dislike 
to bank paper, and a stdl greater to the pay- 
ment of taxes ; and as their lands are continu- 
ally increasmg in value, are becoming a very 
opulent community. Having very little love for 
their countrymen, the English-talking Ameri- 
cans, they do not sympathize much with their 
politics ; and where a German candidate is op- 
posed to an American, are furious electioneer- 
ers. In Pennsylvania, where the people of Ger- 
man origin are very numerous, they control the 
elections entirely, and have it in their power to 
put the government into the hands of Germans, 
which they frequently do with the assistance of 
a democratic minority of the Americans.* 

Although we are still on the limestone, sand- 
stone boulders and pebbles begin to abound, 
evidently the remains of strata once forming an 
integral part of the adjacent ridges. From 
Newmarket we continued to Harrisburgh, a 
distance of 18 miles, where we dined. This is 
a pretty place, and has a sort of public square 
with some good houses, but the most agreeable 
thing I saw was a public spring of excellent 
water, which they had had the good taste to 
build a wall around, in the centre of the square. 
The landlord of the house where we dined was 
remarkably obliging and attentive — indeed we 
find them all civil. From hence we proceeded 
to Mount Crawford, eight miles, in the neigh- 
bourhood of which there is a spring of water 
which comes through the sandstone. We ne.xt 
advanced by a very pretty and nmch less rough 
road to Mount Sydney, having the Blue Ridge 
on our left hand, distant about 12 miles. The 
last stage to-day, still over the liniestone, was 
to Staunton, nine miles, a good town, where 
we found a decent inn. Here we were very 
glad to get some repose after a rough ride. 



CHAPTER n. 

Ascent of the first Alleghany Ridges — A dandy Rattlesnake 
— Magnificent View across the AUeghaiiies from Warm 
Springs Mountain— AiFeccing Reception at the Hotel of 
the Warm Springs. 

We were called at half-past three a.m., pre- 
paratory to our crossing the Alleghany ridges, 
on our way to the Warm Springs, distant from 
lience about 56 miles ; and were tuld we should 
find the road good, which is always a great 
comfort where a lady is concerned. Keeping 
with the limestone to Jennings" Gap — one of 
those defiles which penetrate these ridges — 12 
miles, we came to a clean tavern at the foot of 
the hills, where we got a comfortable breakfast. 
We now left the limestone valley, which we 
had followed 130 mi'es, over a succession of 
beds of limestone and slate, dipping to the east ; 
and passing the Little North Mountain — which 
is a sort of advanced-guard of the sandstone 
lidge called North Mountain — where the land- 
lord told me coal was found near some springs, 



r * The dishimourahle conduct of the state of Pennsylva- 
iHia, in relation to the non-payment of its debts, is fairly at- 
tributable to the Germans 



we came to the main ridge, and entered it at a 
passage called Walker's Mountain, which has a 
mean elevation of about 900 feet. The summit 
is perhaps two miles wide; and is divided agaiit 
into smaller ridges, with depressions, or valleys 
and hummocks, imperfectly separating them. 
The denseness of the woods, the pleasant air, 
the refreshing cheerfulness of the mountain, 
streams, and the delight at finding myself once 
more in the Alleghanies, where I had so oftea 
wandered, made this a very pleasant day to me. 

Travelling in a public vehicle would seem to 
present singular impediments to a correct in- 
vestigation of the geology and natural history 
of a country, as no doubt it does ; and if I had 
not been already familiar with the structure of 
the Alleghany ridges immediately west of the 
Blue Ridge, I should have regretted the very 
limited opportunity now afforded me of forming 
accurate opinions. The general principles, 
however, of what was already known to me of 
the structure and direction of this remarkable 
elevated belt were confirmed by what I saw 
around. The reddish and grey sandstones of 
the mountains, the slates and shales that alter- 
nate with them, the limestones in the valleys, 
and the general anticlinal structure of the ridg- 
es, with their strata dipping in contrary direc- 
tions on each flank, and often rising again, with 
their imbedded minerals and fossils, on the op- 
posite side of the valley, sufficiently bespeak 
the nature of the movement which has raised 
up these ridges, and left the valleys like fur- 
rows between them. Indeed, I was delighted 
to find this mode of travelling not so barren of 
opportunity, but that I could derive a great de- 
gree of enjoyment out of every branch of natu- 
ral history that fell in my way. The roads 
were by no means good ; the country was 
mountainous and rocky ; our average pace did 
not exceed three and a half iniles an hour ; and 
the stage-coach stopped so often to water and 
change horses, that we had an opportunity of 
walking almost whenever we pleased — a privi- 
lege we were all glad to avail ourselves of 

As we were strolling up a hill, we had the 
good luck to surprise a young dandy of a rattle- 
snake, who seemed also to have a geological 
turn, for he was basking at the mouth of his 
habitat, a warm reddish sandstone, loaded with, 
fine impressions of spirifers. His skin had a 
beautiful velvety appearance, and attracted ad- 
miration from us all. Poor fellow ! it was the 
most unlucky day of his life, for it was his last ; 
so, after making some fight, he gave it up at 
length, and I bore away eight rattles from the 
gentleman's tail. 

At the end of 21 miles we reac^hed Clover- 
dale,- and stopped to dine at a tavern where we 
met with very civil people, who gave me all the- 
information they possessed as to the extent of 
any ridge, about which I inquired, where the 
rock changed, where limestone was to be seen 
on the hill-sides, and where in the valleys;, 
where the mountain springs came through fiee- 
stone, as they call all sandstones ; where min- 
eral springs existed — coal, minerals, or any met- 
als, they were not acquainted with ; whether 
any fossil bones had been found in caves or oth- 
er places; any rattlesnakes, any deer, any bears,, 
any panthers, any wild cats, or any thing queer 
of any kind whatsoever. To all such inquiries 



16 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



they gave rational and obliging answers. It is 
always well in the traveller to propound ques- 
tions of this kind, for the explanations he gives 
to make them comprehend him set them think- 
ing, and make them more intelligent sources of 
information to those who succeed him. There 
is something very delightful, too, in the racy 
stories of the old hunters you meet in these 
mountains ; some of which, however, it is quite 
as well to receive cum grano salis. The travel- 
ler who takes such an interest in the country 
he is passing through, gets through it in a friend- 
ly manner, and gleans a great deal of informa- 
tion. At this place we had venison for the first 
time ; hut the haunch was so wretchedly par- 
boiled, and then put into the oven, which they 
called roasting, that I was not tempted to taste 
it, more especially as I saw it was a doe, and 
had not the least fat upon it ; for the hunters 
kill everything they meet, even a doe with a 
fawn running by her side. We were not alone 
at this venison feast ; a carriage-full of Ameri- 
can fashionables from one of the large towns 
assisted at it, and seemed to relish the wretch- 
ed stuff surprisingly. They gobbled up and 
praised the tasteless meat, and the country that 
produced it, as if nothing better could be ima- 
gined : but it is one of the amiable weaknesses 
of the cockney part of this patriotic people, that 
when they have read in English books of the es- 
timation in which anything is held in England, 
they invariably believe that what is good in the 
Mother Country, from civil liberty down to ven- 
ison, must be better in America ; and so con- 
trive to make themselves as happy with the 
shadow of things, as English people do with the 
reality. 

From this place we proceeded to the Warm 
springs, 21 miles — a very interesting drive — 
passing through a valley extremely uneven, 
with hummocks of limestone here and there, 
and made agreeable by a great many charming 
mountain-streams. On its west side we had to 
cross another ridge at a point called Warm 
Springs Mountain, hut which was formerly 
called Jackson's Mountain, after an old settler, 
whose name is yet preserved in Jackson's Riv- 
er, the south fork of which rises in the next 
valley, where the Warm springs are. The mean 
height of this ridge is about 850 feet, and its 
summit, like that of Walker's Mountain, is about 
two miles wide. The road which leads across 
it, its subordinate ridges, their valleys and hum- 
mocks, is a very good one, and winds for about 
five miles from the east to the west base of the 
mountain. More than two-thirds of this dis- 
tance being on the east side of the ridge, I 
walked up it at leisure, and certainly it is dif- 
ficult to do justice, either with the pencil or 
language, to the magnificent objects that were 
continually presenting themselves. Ascending 
the mountain, a succession of deep precipices 
and glens presented themselves, environed with 
dark blue woods and obscure bottoms that no 
eye could penetrate, the fit habitations of pan- 
thers and bears ; whilst from the western edge 
of the summit there was a mighty landscape of 
the Alleghany ridges, one succeeding to the 
other, almost without number, until the most 
distant was shadowed out upon the horizon by 
a pale and misty magnitude, that invested the 
whole picture with sublimity, and created an 



impression of grandeur too lofty to be scanned 
by aught living, save 

" The lordly eagle when from craggy throne 
He mounts the storm majestic and alone." 

With one of the wheels locked, we commenced 
the descent of the mountain at speed ; the dri- 
ver dashed down as if he were mad. The road 
was g:ood, but curving occasionally, and the 
precipices were fearful. We had nothing to do 
but sit still, hold our breath, and believe that if 
we got down safe it would be very satisfactory. 
And we did get down safe. In a very few min- 
utes we exchanged the tranquil and elevated 
feelings that are inspired by the simple honest 
dignity of nature, for the distrust which ex- 
perienced travellers entertain of the obsequi- 
ously cordial reception which in every country 
graces their arrival at the hotels of watering- 
places. 

Until it is determined that you do not go to 
the rival hotel, the zeal in your service is over- 
whelming; the landlord brings out his very best - 
politeness, the waiters grin and bow, and the 
other harpies stand ready to seize upon your 
luggage, with an apparent disinterestedness 
that would induce a novice to suppose that the 
fable of the Prodigal Son was acting over again. 
What an expenditure of fine feeling it would 
cost travellers upon observing how deeply in- 
terested and concerned about them everybody 
appears to be, if it were not for the rising doubt 
that their concern is as to how long you are 
going to stay, and how much money they are 
lijiely to get from you ! Covered with dust, and 
impatient to get out of the stage-coach, we soon 
announced our intention to stay a few days. 
Having taken this important step, our luggage 
was instantly whipped out of sight ; and sup- 
posing we were following it, we ascended some 
steps to the portico of a tolerably large hotel. 
On gaining this, it was a matter that excited 
our admiration to perceive how suddenly that 
anxious solicitude, of which we had so lately 
been the objects, had assumed an abstract po- 
sition. The landlord had made his bows, the 
waiters their grimaces, our names had been 
taken, in limine in libro, and being regularly bag- 
ged, we were left to provide for ourselves, not 
a soul coming near us. A fiddle was screaking 
in one of the rooms ; and we found ourselves 
on the portico, in the midst of a number of 
queer-looking ladies, with and without tour- 
nures, corseted up in all sorts of ways, and 
their hair dressed in every possible form. The 
gentlemen, in greater numbers, were chewing, 
spitting, and smoking, with an ease that evin- 
ced their superiority, and all staring at us in 
the most determined manner. Nothing was 
more certain than that we were out of the 
woods, had got into fashionable society, and 
were now going to depend upon the tender 
mercies of landlords, landladies, and dirty, im- 
pudent, black waiters. After a good deal of 
trouble, rooms were assigned to us ; and hav- 
ing made our toilette and got some refreshment, 
we entered the public parlour for awhile, to take 
a look at those who had done us the favour to 
stare at us on our arrival ; and being soon sat- 
isfied, retired to get some repose after a fatigu- 
ing day's journey. 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



17 



CHAPTER III. 

A Virginia Hotel iu the Mountains — A dancing Land.oru — 
Incomparable beauty of the Warm Baths— Their gaseous 
and solid contents — The Hot Springs — Curioas effect 
produced upon them by an Earthquake— Geological Struc- 
ture of the Ridges — View of the AUeghanies and the 
Warm Springs Valley. 

Having risen much refreshed at the dawn of 
day, I went to the Thermal bath, and was so 
struck with the luxury of this unrivalled phe- 
nomenon, and with the general beauty of the 
valley and the adjacent neighbourhood, that I 
determined to remain at least a week. During 
this period I was very diligent in investigating 
everything around me, and committing my ob- 
servations to my note book, all of which were 
transferred to my journal the day preceding my 
departure, which was on the 12lh of the month. 
To avoid a formal entry of the proceedings of 
each day, I shall now give a general narrative 
of what 1 observed, both of the manners of the 
place and the structure of the country, with an 
account of the rare thermal waters of this inter- 
esting place. 

And first as to what is personal. Of the ho- 
tel at the Warm springs not much is to be said 
in commendation. It is kept by an old inhabi- 
tant of the valley, a Col. Fry, a very worthy per- 
sonage, who is much respected here, as he re- 
ally deserves to be. He has a son, a very obli- 
ging sort of person, who assists him in the man- 
agement of the hotel, and both father and son 
are not wanting in attention to their guests, es- 
pecially to the ladies. These two excellent 
persons are devoured by a passion for dancing, 
and it used to be my great delight, on my re- 
turn from excursions in the mountains, to goto 
the ball-room in the evening to witness the ad- 
mirable performances of Col. Fry with his old 
lower extremities. The house is an awkward, 
ill-finished, ill-furnished building, with all the 
pretension of a well-established hotel in an old 
settled country. The black domestics corre- 
spond with the furniture and everything else. 
There is a long dining-room with a low ceiling, 
a small public parlour not capable of containing 
one-fourth of the company, and a few moderate- 
sized bed-rooms, in which families are accom- 
modated indifferently enough. Wood cabins, 
out of the house, are provided for single people. 
The portico is the greatest comfort about the 
place, being long and roomy, and affording a 
comfortable walk for invalids and ladies in the 
evening. The number of servants is quite in- 
adequate to the crowd of company that is some- 
times assembled there, and there is an eternal 
bawlmg going on both in the house and at the 
doors of the cabins, before breakfast and dinner, 
from those who have no servants of their own. 
"Waiter, there ain't not a drop of water in my 
pitcher." " Waiter, who under arth has taken 
the towel out of my chummberV "Waiter, I 
swar you've brought me two odd boots ; one's 
considerable too little, and the t'other's the most 
almighty big thing what I never seed." One 
night there was quite a row out of doors, as late 
as eleven; somebody had abstracted all the pil 
lows from a whole line of cabins, if such pin 
cushions may be called by that name, when a 
Kenluckian won a bet that he would put nine 
of them into his coat pocket. At length, how 
ever, they were found under the maitrass of 
some one who had probably fancied his bed 
C 



was hard, and who had gone off in an early 
stage coach. But the awful hour of the whole 
twenty-four is that when dinner is announced, 
and when the grand movement of ladies and 
heir beaux takes place to the dining-room. 
There a very good regulation prevails : your 
name is put on your plate, so that your seat is 
reserved and no one has a right to take it. The 
last comers to the hotel are placed at the bot- 
tom of "the table, and as the rest of the company 
departs are " promoted" higher up towards the 
top. 

During our promotion we had many neigh- 
bours and sat opposite to various persons, some 
of whom were polite and mieresling, others 
very much the reverse, just as it occurs in al- 
most every situation in this world. The effect 
of this constant movement was to bring us at 
last to the very head of the company, and place 
me next to the good-natured and fat landlady, 
who did the honours of that eternal mass of ba- 
con which is always the head dish at a Virginia 
table. Besides this huge dish of bacon, which 
left no room for anything else above, there were 
the hams of the fat landlady and their appen- 
dages, which on account of the narrowness of 
the table were equally in my way below. The 
meats, which were abundant, were so horribly 
ruined in the cooking that it was exceedingly 
difficult to guess what they were composed of. 
There M'as, however, always a joint of mutton 
or meagre venison, which Col. Fry, who was 
very appropriately dressed in a blue check pina- 
fore with sleeves to it, carved at a side-table. 
The pastry was good and abundant, with plen- 
ty of excellent milk, and lumps of beautiful 
transparent ice to put into it, a luxury which is 
universal in the pleasant state of Virginia from, 
the mansion of the hospitable planter down to 
the humblest cottage. As to the servants, they 
were few in number and bad ; they were all 
slaves, running up and down the sides of the 
tables to change plates and serve water to the 
guests, as rapidly as if they were on horseback, 
endeavouring to make up by activity for want 
of numbers, never stopping when they were 
called to, and giving you no chance of catching 
one but by sticking a fork into him. I was not 
often present at tli.is ceremony, hut was told it 
was the same thing every day. Col. Fry always 
officiating as high-priest in his blue check robes 
at the side-table, skipping from it to change the 
ladies' plates, and if any one of them rose from 
the dinner table to leave the room, he was in- 
stantly at her side, armed with the carving-knife 
in his right hand, and presenting his left arm ia 
his most insinuating manner to conduct her to 
the door. This extreme politeness not having 
yet travelled to the Ohio, tickles the Kentucky 
ladies wonderfully, and they are said to rise of- 
ten from the table for the sake of being escorted 
by the martial chief carver and his carving-knife 
of state. 

There was another exhibition at this house at 
which I was frequently present, as it took place 
in the evening, when my excursions were over. 
After supper it is the custom at the Warm 
Springs to adjourn to a place called the Ball- 
room, which has a few wooden benches round 
it, and one fiddler. This performer is a Paga- 
nini in his way, for the great Italian played on 
one string, and this man plays on one tune, for 



18 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



it was always the same. Lol. Fry takes the 
most especial delight in this tune ; he is never 
known to be tired of it, and with the exception 
of his son, prides himself upon being the very 
first gambado in Virginia. He certainly is the 
most extraordinary dancing tavern-keeper I have 
seen. Both father and son piquing themselves 
on their politeness, no sooner is the business 
of eating over for the day, than they transform 
themselves every evening into masters of the 
ceremonies; every lady as she enters the ball- 
room is whipped up by one of them and dragged 
to one of the benches, a proceeding which is 
somewhat amusing the first evening of a lady's 
arrival, when she does not know who they are 
or what they are going to do with her. As 
soon as enough are assembled to make a qua- 
drille, the Fry firm pounce upon two of the last 
comers to the hotel, refuse to take " No" for 
an answer, and literally haul their partners to 
the dance. Then commences the glory of Col. 
Fry and his son, in the profound solemnity of 
his bows, the indescribable flourislies they both 
make with their legs, and the unremitting at- 
tention they give to every minutia of the dance. 
If the lady to whom the Colonel is dancing 
should be talking to her next neighbour, and 
does not commence an instantaneous fluttera- 
tion with her lower extremities, the Colonel 
skips to her side and raises a preposterous clap- 
ping close to her ears with the palms of his 
hands, so that in the course of the first quadrille 
he brings them to such a state of discipline, that 
they become as much afraid of him as if he was 
one of the bears of his own mountains; and 
when he seizes them by both hands to give 
them one of his grand whisks round, they sub- 
mit with all the resignation of a bird in the tal- 
ons of a hawk. The Colonel loves to hear his 
son praised, and admits that he dances the 
modern style better than himself; "but," says 
the Colonel, " I do more work with my legs 
than he does, and at any rate he can't spring so 
high." 

These peculiarities in an innkeeper appear 
very odd to those to whom they are altogether 
new, but the Virginians are accustomed to these 
manners, and estimate tliese accomplishments 
in the landlord highly. The truth is, that he is 
a very worthy, obliging man, and lived here 
when visiters could hardly get accommodations 
of any kind ; so that, being the sole dispenser 
of all comforts, he has been at all times the 
most important personage on the spot. Indeed, 
it behoves every one who is passing through an 
unsettled district to have some deference for 
the landlord, especially if there is no other house 
within twenty or thirty miles ; the host feels 
this his advantage over the traveller, and thus 
a custom, the reverse of that which obtains in 
the towns, has grown up in the interior of Amer- 
ica, of the guests paying attention to the landlord, 
instead of the landlord paying attention to the 
guests. 

Whilst here I became acquainted with the 
resident physician, Dr. Strother, a man of good 
sense, and whom I should think a safe medical 
adviser. From him I obtained a great deal of 
interesting information regarding many locali- 
ties in the neighbourhood, and always found his 
conversation instructive and agreeable. It is 
very important to those who use these warm 



springs as a bath to consult this able physician, 
as many persons have injured themselves by a 
too free use of them. Considering how sur- 
prisingly beautiful and luxurious they are, this 
is not surprising. They rise through the lime- 
stone in a marshy piece of ground, partly over- 
flowed by the south fork of Jackson's River,. 
which heads about three miles N.E. up the val- 
ley. Over the main bath a rough octagonal 
building has been raised, open at the top : the 
diameter of the bath at the bottom is about 
thirty-five feet, and the average depth is about 
five feet. When you enter the door of the 
building you feel a heat equal to that of a for- 
cing-house, but you soon lose all consciousness 
of it in the contemplation of what is before 
you. First, you are struck with the unrivalled 
beauty of the water, which is so enchantingly 
pellucid, that you think you never saw any 
water so diaphanous before, not even the wa- 
ters of the Rhone where they issue from the 
Lake of Geneva. Then the gaseous matter, 
which keeps the water in a constant playful 
state of ebullition, sometimes sending up streams 
of large bubbles, then firing off a feu de joie in a 
perfect shower of smaller ones. Enter when 
you will, it is playing and sparkling like a vast 
reservoir of champagne, and you would be never 
satisfied with looking on and admiring this un- 
rivalled spectacle, and would continue for hours- 
to look and admire, if the perspiration trickling 
down your face did not remind you that such a 
hot place was not made to remain all day in. 
But what words can do justice to the luxury of 
plunging into and playing about in this pool of 
perfect delight 1 Next i;o Champagne frappe de 
glace, which is certainly the most glorious in- 
vention after a hot day's hard geological work, 
I think this water, frappe de chukur, is the great- 
est enjoyment in the world, to any one who, 
rising with the dawn, has been occupied until 
noon wading through a burning sun, climbing 
the rugged mountain's side, hammering rocks, 
poking his half-willing hand — doubtful of the 
rattle-snake — into holes after snail shells, and 
who has had to trudge back with his pockets 
and hands full of specimens, and with feet and 
arms equally tired. It would be difficult for 
him to imagine aught that could rival this ex- 
traordinary bath, where the temperature is 
about 98° Fahr., and where streams of gas go 
gently creeping over his body, as if little fishes 
were nibbling at him; where he has ample 
room to flounder about, and entertains no ap- 
prehensions of a cold shock when he jumps in, 
or of cold air when he jumps out. 

I was careful, however, never to pass more 
than fifteen minutes in it ; that period was suf- 
ficient to refresh me, and instead of being sleepy 
and heavy after I came out, I felt more lively 
and ready for conversation than at any other 
time. It was fortunate, too, that my leisure 
hour was the only one during the morning when 
I could have the large bath to myself. From 
four in the morning this bath was appropriated 
every alternate two hours to the two sexes. I 
was told that sometimes twenty women would 
be in it altogether, and fine fun no doubt they 
had, if one might judge from the laughter and 
noise that proceeded from the place at such 
times. The men, too, are not less gregarious, 
and thus convert the most delicate of luxuries 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



19 



into a state of things almost as bad, I should 
suppose, as that in the Penitentiary. Old sick 
men, young boys, husbands of charming wives, 
fathers of beautiful daughters, all in the same 
pickle together, mingling with the most extra- 
ordinary lookmg tobacco-chewing, expectora- 
ting, and villainous looking nondescripts. Where 
are the waters that could undefile a man after 
coming out of such a polluted liquid ! When I 
was not so fortunate as to find tlie public bath 
vacant, I used to secure a more modest bath 
adjacent to the large one, in a very nice, and 
not a very small private place, where you are 
privileged to be alone. 

The marshy ground in which these baths are 
situated, contains in the three or four acres 
which it comprehends, a prodigious variety of 
springs, differing perhaps in nothing but their 
temperature, which varies a little. Myriads of 
bubbles are rising in every part of the brook, 
which will no doubt be enclosed at some future 
day to increase the number of baths. Near to 
the modest bath a spring has been enclosed, 
which is called the " Drinkmg Spring :"' this 
has been rudely fitted up for the visitors to re- 
sort to, and is said to be used medicinally with 
success. The temperature is somewhat lower 
than that of the large bath, being 94" Fahr , and 
it evolves a slight quantity of sulphuretted hy- 
drogen, which is not very disagreeable, leaving 
a taste in the mouth not stronger than that which 
IS produced by the albumen of a boiled egg. The 
gaseous contents of these waters were princi- 
pally nitrogen, carbonic acid, and a little sul- 
pliuretted hydrogen.* The soluble salts are 
carbonate, and sulphate of lime with magnesia. 
Small crystals of sulphate of magnesia are some- 
times found attached to stones where the spray 
of the water has beaten, and a great deposit 
of carbonate of lime mixed with a small propor- 
tion of sulphate is made wherever ilie stream 
runs, for, in proportion as it becomes exposed to 
the air, the carbonic acid forsakes the lime, 
which is then precipitated. Lower down. Where 
the public road crosses the stream, this calca- 
rous deposit is very considerable, and I'orms a 
body of travertine upon which you can walk 
across the stream. 

During my residence at this place I walked 
over to V\^e Hot-springs, about five miles distant, 
in a south-western direction, dovvn the same 
valley. About half a mile on the road there is 
a well-defined gap to the right through the Back- 
water Mountain ; and here it is evident from 
the scooping out of the bottom, that when the 
waters anciently' retired from this district, the 
^stream that has contributed to the denudation 
of the valley has deflected, and caused the gap 
through which the road to Huntersville now runs. 
About four and a half miles from this is anoth- 
er very picturesque gap, scooped, as it were, 
out of the mountain, the slopes of which have a 
graceful inclination to the bottom. This gap 
is the termination of a short valley of about 
S-'iOO yards, that here intersects the main val- 
ley, which, together with the high road, it cross- 
es at right angles. In this short valley are the 
boi-spriMgs, with a small hotel for the reception 
of persons who come for the benefit of the vva- 



* Dr. Daubeny, of Oxford, who visited the warm s\ 
in 1838, found the gaseous contents to consist of % 
ge.fi, 6 carbonic acid, and 4 oxygen. 



ters. To the left of the road, as you approach 
the hotel, are several warm springs, as well as 
a most delicious cold one ; but the Hot-springs, 
which are used as baths, lie to the right, imme- 
diately in front of the hotel. A new circular 
bath has been recently constructed here, with a 
diameter of more than thirty feet, but it pos- 
sesses little of that natural beauty which is so 
striking in the principal bath at the warm 
springs, although the water is very transparent. 
It is also inferior in another respect ; Dr. Goode, 
the proprietor, having by a great oversight omit- 
ted to enclose several very copious springs, 
with their beautiful jets of gas quite adjacent 
to the others, and having in their place enclosed 
a quantity of dead ground. The temperature 
was 94°, but would no doubt have been higher 
but for this mistake, which has shut out at least 
one hundred points of ebullition ; for in a con- 
tiguous bath, called the Spout Bath, from its be- 
ing brought a short distance in a spout, and. 
made to fall from it into a reservoir, the tem- 
perature was 102° Fahr. These waters appear 
to be identical with each other as to their con- 
stitutents, they all produce travertine, and have 
a different proportion of carbonic acid from that 
in the waters of the Warm springs.* To the 
east of the road there is a singularly charming 
water, such as I have never met with before. 
It is collected in a section of hollow tree, called 
a gum (because the Hquid-ambar styracifliia, or 
gum-tree, is generally used for this purpose),^ 
which is sunk in the ground; and, although it 
possesses a temperature of 101° Fahr., it has 
the property of quenching thirst as well as cool 
water, at least it produced that effect upon me. 
Being warmed with my walk, and hearing Dr. 
Goode talk of a fine spring of cool water risincr 
amidst the other springs which were all hot, 
my imagination was dwelling upon this cool 
spring long before we reached it ; but having 
tasted the water in the gum first, I found it so 
agreeable that I drank three glasses of it, and 
allayed my thirst so perfectly, that I had no de-. 
sire to drink from the cool spring when we 
reached it; and, indeed, feeling thirsty again 
before I went away, I hesitated for some time 
which of the two I should prefer, and was final- 
ly so pleased with the recollection of the warm 
water that I gave it the preference, and was 
very well satisfied that I had done so. This 
was the first time I ever supposed warm water 
could produce any effect upon me but that of an 
emetic. This is, probably, a very valuable wa- 
ter, of which time will disclose the great prop- 
erties ; it is agreeable to the palate, and can.be.' 
taken into the stomach in large quantitits wrtE^ 
out disgust or inconvenience. It (>^s an ai^ree- 
able chalybeate flavour. ah'J is slightly acidula- 
ted with carbonic acid ; and I understand from 
the proprietor that the country people admired 
It as much as I had done, and that it had ob- 
tained the name of the Sweet Spring. Very 
near to this rises the cool spring, coming through 
the limestone with a temperature of 60° Fahr 
It is a very pure water, and is called the Free- 
stone ^Spring, a very common name given to 
rock springs. 

Whilst I was standing at this spring with Dr 
Goode, he related to me that during the last 



* Dr. Daubeny examined these waters, and found the 
gaseous matter to be composed of 6 oxygen and 94 nitrogen. 



20 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



summer, when sitting one day over the gum — 
•which usually is full to within two inches — the 
•water in it suddenly rose in a body and over- 
flowed its edges ; this it continued to do for about 
two minutes, when a violent ebullition of gas 
commenced which lasted three or four minutes 
more. The water now, from a pure transparent 
state, became suddenly turbid, and remained so 
for some time. Struck with this unusual phe- 
nomenon he left the gum, and went to the baths 
to see if the waters were disturbed there also, 
but there was no apparent change, and he found 
no reason to believe that the otlier waters had 
been at all disturbed. At his return to the gum 
he found the waters clear again, and at the or- 
dinary level. The phenomenon had never been 
repeated. Some time after this, looking into a 
newspaper, he read, that on the very day, and 
at the hour he observed this disturbance, a se- 
vere earthquake had been felt in the central 
parts of Virginia. As I remembered this earth- 
quake very distinctly, I noted Dr. Goode's day 
and hour, and on my return consulted my Jour- 
nal of last year, and found that, being on a visit 
"With rny soi» to Mr. Madison, the ex-president, 
at his seat of Montpelier, in Orange County, 
Virginia, we made an excursion into the Coun- 
ty of Louisa, and passed a nigiit at the house 
of a worthy gentleman named Halliday, who 
related to us that the earthquake took place 
precisely at the time -when Dr. Goode noted the 
disturbance of the spring; that the movement 
■was sensibly felt upon his plantation and in his 
house, and created a general dismay in the 
neighbourhood. It was the subject of conver- 
sation a long time after its occurrence, and hav- 
ing collected information respecting it from 
other quarters, Mr. Halliday thought he was 
■warranted in believing that his own residence 
•was a sort of central point, towards which all 
the rumblings converged that had been heard 
from within fifteen miles of his plantation. He 
had taken up the idea that the phenomenon did 
not proceed from a cause acting subterraneous- 
ly, but that it had its origin in the atmosphere, 
and was of the nature of a discharge of electric 
matter. A very long drought had succeeded 
to a very rainy season, that had lasted five 
•weeks. This was the same year that the great 
meteoric discharge took place in November, 
1833, and which, though silent as the play of 
the Aurora Borealis, was singularly brilliant 
and copious at Fredericsburg, in Virginia, where 
I happened to be at the time. 

In regard to the geological structure of this 
part of the country, most of these ridges have 
an anticlinal structure exceedingly disturbed, 
the order of superposition of the rocks being 
sandstone, limestone, and slate. In many parts 
the most important beds have been carried away. 
as appears to have been the case at the Warm 
Springs Mountain, where there is sufficient evi- 
dence that the surface of the country was much 
higher at the first heaving up of this mountain ; 
the rocks in many places dipping to the east al- 
most vertically, whilst across they dip to the 
■west, showing that those which covered the in- 
tervening space must have been rent asunder 
by the movement. The limestone of the Warm 
.Springs Valley appears to be of the age of that 
which I had so long followed, of the Valley of 
Shenandoah, and it is through this that the 



thermal waters arise, in consequence of the 
vent which has been given to them by the 
mighty upheaval and removal of this mass of 
mineral matter. In this Valley of the Warm 
Springs, about a quarter of a mile .''rom the ho- 
tel, up a road on the left of the ascent of the 
Warm Springs Mountain in a N.E. direction, is 
a limestone bed containing fine impressions of 
producta, closely resembling P. Martini, with 
flustra, cyathophyllum, cellepora, astrea, &c., 
and I found specimens from this rock so much 
resembling those of the Dudley limestone in 
England, and of other calcareous rocks near 
Lake Erie, that both from the character of the 
fossils and the interesting groups which are 
presented, they would seem to be equivalents. 

From the pinnacle of the Warm Springs 
Mountain (distant about 3000 feet from the toll- 
house at the summit of the road), which is, per- 
haps, about 1100 feet from the valley, and which 
is formed by a heap of white quartzose sand- 
stone, there is a splendid and most instructive 
series of views of the Alleghany ridges. The 
view to the east is very magnificent, but I se- 
lected that to the west in order to include the 
Warm Springs Valley, which is analogous, ac- 
cording to its extent, to the other valleys which 
respectively separate the ridges ; and my son 
made a sketch, which very faithfully represents 
the character of the landscape. The view 
across the mountains extends, perhaps, forty 
miles, the various ridges all appearing very dis- 
tinctly, holding a parallel course to each other 
from N.N.E. to N.E., with the exception of a 
few irregular and transverse ridges that lie 
across the valleys in some parts of the country ; 
these have generally passages or gaps — as they 
are here called — at one end or the other, or in 
the centre, unless one or more large gaps di- 
vide the ridges at some point adjacent to them. 

These gaps are numerous and picturesque, 
and it frequently happens that when the geolo- 
gist has been strolling for miles in some narrow 
valley hemmed in by ridges 600 or 800 feet 
high, he comes upon one of them wide at the top 
with a graceful slope, and a talus of detritus to 
the bottom, like the gap of the Backwater 
Ridge, which confines the Valley of the Warm 
Springs to the west, and which suddenly opens, 
and gives an ample and beautiful peep upon a 
heavy ridge, which has the distinctive name of 
the Alleghany Mountain, and sometimes the 
Backbone Ridge, from its being a watershed for 
the sources of rivers that flow from its west 
flank to empty into the Gulf of Mexico, and 
from its east flank to empty into the Atlantic 
Ocean. , 

It is through these gaps that the waters have 
probably escaped which retired from the dis- 
tricts when these ridges were upheaved from 
the ocean, the channels by which they retired 
being most likely governed by the relative soft- 
ness of the strata. The temperature in these 
valleys is, of course, much higher than on the 
ridges. On the 8th of August I observed it at 
nine o'clock a.m., on the pinnacle of the Warm 
Springs Mountain, at 74°, whilst, by a corre- 
sponding observation, made in the valley, it 
was 88° Fahr. At that elevation the westerly 
winds have their freshness unchanged by the 
radiation and reflection of heat below, and are, 
as I have often experienced on sultry days, per- 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



21 



fecfly refreshing. One day, whilst I was sit- 
ting on one of liie h)fliest peaks enjoying the 
grandeur of the view, a humuiing-bird flew past 
me, the only one I saw at that height. Land- 
shells also are very scarce at this elevation : I 
found some helices, however, in a cleft of the 
white sandstone at the top of the ridge. The 
pines are scrubby at these summits, and the 
Calmia latifolia and the Vaccinium frondosum 
or whortleberry, are found at the highest points. 
The other plants on tiie slopes of the ridges are 
chestnut, hickory, walnut, (Juglans), linden, lo- 
cust (Robinia pseudo-acacia), and oaks red and 
white. The flies that frequent the tops of the 
ridges are a very large-sized variety. I met 
with no snakes except the rattle-snake before 
mentioned. Animals of chase are rarely found 
in this part of the country except when mast is 
plentiful. The bears and deer have generally 
retreated to situations where man does not tor- 
ment them so much, and only return when food 
is scarce in their own districts, and when chest- 
nuts and the acorns of the white oak, of which 
the deer are fond, abound here. At such times 
the panther {Fdis discolor), comes for the same 
reason, not because he eats chestnuts, but be- 
cause he knows that he shall find deer there. 
The sportsmen and dogs in the neighbourhood 
are out of all proportion to the game, and the 
few deer that remain alive in the vicinity are so 
worried by the dogs, that their meat is thin and 
not worth eating. Bears are verv seldom seen. 



CHAPTER IV. 

The celebrated White Sulphur Springs — Mr. Anderson, a 
character — Description of this Watering Place — Beauty 
of tJie Alleghany Mountain — Our various adventures at 
a Blacksmith's Boarding-house and Alabama Row — An 
old Lady makes a double somerset — Our removal to 
Compulsion Row. 

On the 12th of August, a little after 4 a.m„ 
we all got into the stage-coach for the White 
Sulphur Springs, the great point of attraction 
to all visitors to these mountains. At the end 
of six miles we came to a gradual descent 
through a very romantic woodland ravine, which 
lasted eight miles, to Shoemates, where we 
breakfasted. From this place to Callahan's, 13 
miles, a sort of outlying mountain is crossed, 
formed of a decomposing sandstone, which is 
in some places very ferruginous ; this rock co- 
heres so little, that at the summit of the hill the 
sand is quite deep. Callahan's tavern is in a 
very agreeable valley basin, and has that lofty 
ridge, which is specially called Alleghany 
Mountain, in front. The house is neat, and 
promises some comfort, having a spring of deli- 
clous cool water near to it. The next stage 
of 1-5 miles lies for the greater part over the 
Alleghany Mountain just mentioned, which ap- 
peared to consist principally of slate and fissile 
sandstone. On the summit I found fossiliferous 
sandstone in place, with the usual spirlfers, en- 
crlni, &c. The trees on this ridge are well 
grown, and here, as well as in most of these 
mountains, I observed that the ridges on then- 
slopes are not craggy, but are covered with a 
strong productive arable soil, capable of yield- 
ing 40 hu«hels of Indian corn to the acre. Oc- 
casionally I have observed fields of this corn at 



an elevation of 700 feet above the valleys, and 
when these slopes are worked with horizontal 
ploughing along the sides of the ridges, the soil 
is not carried away by the rains, as In the red 
lands of the central counties of Virginia, where 
vertical ploughing is practised, which creates 
gulleys and chasms so broad as to lead in many 
instances to the abandonment of the land. This, 
therefore, will make a good grazing country in 
time, and maintain a large population. At pres- 
ent, lands in a state of nature, not distant from 
the main roads, can be obtained at from three 
to five dollars an acre, when in accessible situ- 
ations ; at greater distances large tracts may 
be obtained for 50 cents, and even as low as 
sixpence sterling an acre, the parties in whom 
the title lies living at a distance, and wishing 
to sell it at any price rather than pay taxes for 
what they derive no benefit frotn. For a long 
period the farmers of this part of the country 
will be obliged to pack all their agricultural pro- 
ductions into the shape of hogs and cattle capa- 
ble of carrying themselves to market, but there 
are many things — if managed with prudence 
and skill — would repay the exertions of active 
men ; fine wools, fat sheep, fat cattle, and even 
good tobacco, I am persuaded might be raised 
here. If the rocky surfaces and uncertain eU- 
mate of New Hampshire, and some parts of 
Connecticut and New York, afford a hearty 
subsistence to industry, and permit prudent 
men to bring up large families in a happy and 
honourable manner, certainly these fertile and 
salubrious hills inight do the same. 

We had heard from various persons at the 
Warm Springs, who knew the place we were 
going to, many rutnours relating to the White 
Sulphur Springs, which— notwithstanding their 
great celebrity at a distance — were of an un- 
promising character ; we had been told that the 
establishment was full to repletion — that all 
persons were refused accommodation, whatever 
their respectability might be, unless they brought 
horses and carriages with them to augment the 
sum total of expenditure. Any little lawyer or 
storekeeper in Virginia, by rigging out a dirty 
old vehicle, and travelling with it at the rate of 
25 miles a day, could, we were assured, gel in; 
whilst those who came in the stage-coach only 
got out, for the sober truth was, that if they 
would not receive you, there was no other place 
to go to. Persons, therefore, of the greatest 
worth, seeking relief from the waters, and who 
came in the stage-coach because they would 
not destroy a good equipage and horses in a 
long journey of five or six hundred miles, were 
said to be turned away without ceremony, or 
directed to farm-houses in the neighbourhood, 
under strong promises to provide quarters for 
them the next day ; and were thus kept de die 
in diem with renewed promises and lying excu- 
ses until their patience was exhausted. In ad- 
dition to this, we were told that if you did get 
In, you were poisoned and embittered by a filth, 
a confusion, a want of common honesty, and a 
total want of personal comfort, that rendered 
the days and nights equally horrible. 

We were ill prepared for such a state of things, 
for our friend Colonel Fry had certainly done 
his best for us both in the way of comfort and 
dancing, and we had left him with the kindliest 
feelings. On our approach to the White Sul- 



22 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



■phur Springs, therefore, my mind was some- 
what disturbed as to what our fate would be. I 
had a lady with me who was an invahd, and 
who had come expressly to drink the waters, 
and I began to be afraid of meeting with diffi- 
culties beyond my control. It was true I had 
taken the precaution to write to a well-known 
friend who had gone there in his carriage, and 
with his own horses, and who was supposed to 
have great influence with the proprietor, Mr. 
Caldwell. I had therefore a friend at court, 
and that friend had written to me that Mr. An- 
derson, the prime minister of the proprietor, 
had promised to provide accommodations for us 
against our arrival. But unfortunately I had 
heard a great deal of Mr. Anderson at the Warm 
Springs ; the impartial world there seemed dis- 
posed to agree in doing him justice, and a lady 
from Kentucky, whom he had not been too at- 
tentive to, told me that " if Anderson vvarn't 
the biggest liar that ever was to belong to Vir- 
ginny, then there was a great one to be born 
yet." The stage-coach in which we were was 
full of people, agitated by the same hopes and 
fears as ourselves, all anxious to get the first 
interview with this Mr. Anderson, a personage 
now grown into the highest importance with 
us all ; when, unluckily, as we were approach- 
ing the place, another stage-coach whipped 
past us full of people, which threw us all in de- 
spair, and we suspended for the moment our 
secret contrivances to anticipate each other, to 
unite in reproaches against our driver for per- 
mitting the other coach to pass us. 

The moment our vehicle stopped I jumped 
out, and immediately found a group of people 
talking to a person who was answering the va- 
rious eager inquiries they were putting to him. 
This was a short, thick-set fellow, with a filthy 
black hat hanging on one side of his head, at an 
angle of about 45°, his garments as unpromis- 
ing as his beaver, his arms a-kimbo, and his 
whole appearance vivified with a fierce, cool, 
and brazen-faced strut, that made a perfect 
character of him. I had been cherishing some 
faint hope that the great Mr. Anderson, the 
Metternich of this wonderful establishment, 
might have a touch of the gentleman in him, 
and be disposed to assist me in my need : this 
animal, thought I, cannot be Mr. Anderson ; hut, 
considering the levee about this matchless in- 
dividual, my mind somewhat misgave me, and 
I doubtingly inquired of him where I could see 
Mr. Anderson 1 The answer was not long in 
coming, and to my somewhat dismay, I heard 
the important declaration, " I reckon I am Mr. 
Anderson." I then mentioned my name and 
the reasons I had for supposing that an apart- 
ment had been reserved for me ; upon which, 
without the least circumlocution, he said, " Look 
ye. Mister, I han't room for a cat, to say no- 
thing about your family." If ever individuals 
■were in " a considerable particular fix," we now 
might claim to be in the rare situation which 
would ^deserve so felicitous a paraphrase, for 
the driver of the stage-coach having thrown 
our luggage on the ground, ordered my family 
to get out, as he was going to take his vehicle 
away : here, then, we were without friends or 
lodgings, or sympathy from any one. Address- 
ing myself to this Anderson again, I told him 
we had been induced to come on, by assurances 



that he had engaged to procure us lodgings, 
and that he must do it, for we could not stay 
out of doors all night. The fellow now advised 
me to go to a house two miles distant until the 
morning, when he said he would do his veiy 
best for me, admitting that much interest had 
been used to procure lodgings for us in the es- 
tablishment, and assuring me that he had the 
best dispositions to serve me. The question 
was now how to get to this house, and whilst 
I was endeavouring to arrange this, a little lame 
man, witii a very Jewish face — who seemed to 
belong to the establishment, and who hobbled 
about with a stick — brought an unshaven but 
civil spoken man to me, who said his name 
was Servoy, that he lived only half a mile from 
the Springs, in a cottage I had observed as we 
drove up, and that he would accommodate us 
with a room to ourselves until we removed to 
the Springs. 1 immediately closed with this 
offer. Mr. Servoy undertook to procure a sort 
of carriage to convey us to his place, and whilst 
these matters were arranging I took an oppor- 
tunity of looking around me with a mind some- 
what more at ease, which I was too busy to do 
before, even if I had not been prevented by a 
dense crowd, principally composed of dirty, 
spitting, smoking, queer-looking creatures, that 
had assembled upon our arrival. 

The establishment of the White Sulphur 
Springs seemed to consist of a pack of unprom- 
sing-looking huts, or cabins, as they are called, 
surrounding an oblong square, with a foot walk 
in the centre, railed off from a grassy plot on 
each side of it. At the entrance into the estab- 
lishment — which has very much the air of a 
permanent Methodist camp-meeting — you have 
on the left a miserable-looking sort of barrack, 
badly constructed of wood, with a dilapidated 
portico. Nothing can exceed the frowsy ap- 
pearance of this building, which contains the 
grand dining saloon, where daily between three 
and four hundred persons assemble to a kind of 
scramble for breakfast, dinner, and supper. A 
few of the cabins had a comfortable-looking ap- 
pearance, and these were the private property 
of genteel families residing in various parts of 
Virginia, but who have a right to occupy them 
only in person, and not by proxy. This oblong 
square descends rather rapidly towards the 
south-west to the spring, which is surrounded 
by a small colonnade, with seats around it, gen- 
erally filled by persons, many of whom are in- 
differently dressed, and are constantly smoking 
and spitting. Others are quietly waiting, with 
emaciated sallow faces, made ghastly with fev- 
er and ague, until the time comes to drink 
another glass of the sulphuretted water, the 
gaseous effluvium of which extends far around. 
A few paces from this is another reservoir of the 
water, surrounded with a curb-stone, where the 
negro servants assemble and drink in imitation 
of their masters, and out of which water is dip- 
ped for the use of the horses in the contiguous 
stables. From these springs other rows of cab- 
ins are visible, of an inferior kind, but all having 
a very unprepossessing look. One of these 
rows is called Fly Row, from the myriads of flies 
which constantly infest it. Other rows have 
still more objectionable names. Some of them 
have received names from the visitors, such as 
Probaiwn Row, an inferior locality, where fam- 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



23 



ilies are placed until they can be better provided 
for. 

We found Mr. Servoy's house exceedingly in- 
commodious, and their manner of living rude 
and irregular. This man, who was really an 
obliging person, was a country blacksmith, and 
having perceived during the past season that 
the accommodations at the springs were insuf- 
.ficient, and having discovered a moist puddle on 
his own premises, which encouraged him to be- 
Jieve it might become a spring, had made an 
addition to his house, and had abandoned the 
anvil for the vocation of entertaining company, 
for which he was as much titted as we were for 
making horse-shoes. The good people did their 
very best to entertain us ; but the meat and the 
cooking were alike detestable ; the bread and 
the butter were both bad ; and only the milk 
tolerable, of which, fortunately there was an 
abundance. There was a tine spring of cold 
water, too, on the premises, which was an in- 
valuable luxury. 

Nature, however, always attractive in this in- 
teresting country, compensated as far as she 
could for all these inconveniences. The house 
■was situated upon a charming knoll on the west 
side of Howard's Creek — a tributary ol the great 
Kanhaway River that discharges into the Ohio 
■which meandered at its foot. In front there 
was an enchanting view of the Alleghany moun- 
tains, the spurs of which, clothed with noble 
woods, sometimes projected into the valley, and 
sometimes ran parallel with the flanks of the 
mountains, whose beautiful and picturesque ser- 
rated summits, sometimes undulating in round- 
ed hummocks, like the Resegone of the moun- 
tains of the Lakeof Como, in the Milanese, and 
at others presenting acute ridges and peaks, 
bore every where a rich velvety appearance, 
from the depth and luxuriance of their forests. 
With these sweet views around us, with the 
agreeable excursions we made, with bread and 
mdk and good water, and occasional visits to the 
White Sulphur Springs, to remind Mr. Anderson 
of his engagement with me, we got over live 
days at our host's the blacksmith. He, on the 
other hand, took in every body who would come; 
and many were the unfortunates who, like our- 
selves had reached the end of their journey with- 
out finding a home there. Unfortunately, whilst 
his house was full — having crammed sixteen 
people into a space not sufficient for half that 
number — the "help" he had engaged to assist 
his wife and children in cooking and waiting 
upon the guests went away, because " sich a 
power of folks it was o?ipossible to sarve ;" and 
not being able to procure another in the imme- 
diate neighbourhood, he was obliged to go to 
Lewisburg, a small town about nine miles off, 
to get one. During his absence, Mrs Black- 
smith having to make all the beds, cook all the 
victuals, and wait upon every body in the bar- 
gain, came to the same conclusion that her 
•'help" had done ; and as various significant 
hints were thrown out by some of the company 
that it was likely she understood blowing the 
bellows better than making people comfortable, 
she very sensibly thought that the best way of 
diminishing the quantum of dissatisfaction was 
to get rid of some of her guests. During her 
husband's absence, the dinner the first day con- 
sisted of a hunch of something she called beef. 



brought to table in such a state that it was im- 
possible to divine whether it had been roasted 
or boiled, or what had been done to it ; it was, 
moreover, so tough and stringy, that alter vari- 
ous unhappy attempts, it was found out of the 
question to hope to masticate it ; whereupon all 
the guests in utter dismay grounded their arms, 
" gave it up," and rose from the table. Never 
was the chief of a state more puzzled with an 
insurrection than she was when her child, who 
was waiting on the table, went and told her 
mammy that the company " wouldn't touch the 
beef no how." This being an overt act that 
directly involved the authority of the govern- 
ment, she met it in the true Cyclopian spirit. 
Flying into the room, without a moment's delay, 
she gave notice, in the most intelligible man- 
ner, " I aint a-going to work myself to death to 
please nobody. I reckon, if you are so nice, you 
know where to get better; so go as soon as you 
like, for you shan't stay here no longer." 

This proclamation produced the ett'ect that all 
energetic measures timely adopted by govern- 
ments usually do, and was felt to be particularly 
cutting in that part where we were told to jro 
as soon as we liked, as if we, poor devils ! could 
like to go when there was no place for us to go 
to. At length the blacksmith returned, and 
without any " help," and in an ill humour, which 
was an unusual occurrence. We had a speci- 
men of it in the evening. One of the company, 
who had gone without dinner, observed to him 
that it was past eight o'clock ; that he had had 
no dinner ; and that he wanted his tea, which 
ought to have been ready at six. Upon which 
Mr. Servoy observed that " the folks was doing 
the best they could for the boarders ; and if the 
boarders warn't satisfied with that, why there 
was no sich thing as satisfying the boarders, for 
folks couldn't do nothing more than their best — 
that every body knowed ; and if any of the 
boarders warn't satisfied with his folks, why he 
didn't want their company." This speech, 
which was instantly produced in place of tea, 
showed us that we ought not to be very partic- 
ular as to what we got as long as we stayed here, 
and effectually put us upon our good behaviour. 

In the mean time I was forming a very close 
acquaintance with the premier, Mr. Anderson. 
Two or three days I visted the springs, to see if 
it was possible to soften his obdurate heart, and 
get admission into the paradise of filth and con- 
fusion over which he presided : each time he 
made me the most grave promises to take me 
in the next morning, which, when it came, he 
as regularly broke, alleging all sorts of excuses, 
and bringing all sorts of defensive armour out 
of his inexhaustible stock of subterfuges and 
lies, to meet the rather critical cross-examina- 
tions I found it necessary to submit his reasons 
to. At length it became too bad ; be had taken 
others in who came subsequently to us, and 
could no longer plead that they were on the list 
before us. My friends now complained to Mr. 
Caldwell, the proprietor, who promised to inter- 
cede in our favour ; and upon this Anderson en- 
gaged positively to receive us the next day at 
twelve o'clock, but when that hour arrived he 
again broke his word. 

Being now utterly tired out with his prevari- 
cations, lies, and subterfuges, I walked over 
with my son and told him, that as he had ad- 



24 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



mitted tliat I had borne with his conduct with 
good temper and moderation, my anger was 
liiisly to be proportionabiy violent ; that I could 
no longer stay at the blacksmith's, and that if 
I was not taken in forthwith, I should leave the 
Whit^ Sulphur altogether ; but I desired him to 
understand that it was my fixed purpose to leave 
such a memorandum upon his shoulders as 
would be talked of by all who visited the moun- 
tains for generations to come. Upon this Mr. 
Anderson scratched his head, and said, "I'll 
tell you what, Mr. F., I can do for you ; I can 
give you No. 29 now directly, if you choose 
to go into it, but I can't give you a whole 
cabin for two or three days to come." Five 
minutes before this he had sworn he had not 
a hole to put a cat in. We now moved to 
No. 29, which was a single room, with two beds, 
in a row of inferior cabins called Alabama Row ; 
my son having procured a dingy-looking hole 
to pass the night in, at the public tavern where 
the post-office was kept. Here, in the adjoin- 
ing rooms, we found numerous acquaintances 
who had been in quarantine like ourselves. The 
room was an oblong about 12 feet long, and 
very narrow, consequently very inconvenient. 
This row was built against the side of a hill ; 
and the room, which extended the whole width 
of the row, had two doors. The western one 
opened upon the hill, and you could step out 
upon it immediately ; but the eastern and prin- 
cipal entrance was by a steep flight of broken 
and dangerous wooden steps. Furniture there 
was none inside, except two low bedsteads 
coarsely put together with rough planks ; and 
the narrow wooden frame on which I was to 
sleep was so broken-backed that it tilted up in 
the middle. Finding it utterly impossible to 
sleep there, I had to get up again after I had 
lain down, and make a tolerably even surface 
by filling up the inequalities with articles from 
my own wardrobe. The mattress was full of 
knots, and what was in the thing that was in- 
tended to be my pillow I never ascertained ; but 
a gentleman informed ine that he and his wife 
having, after the usual vexatious delays, got into 
some room resembling ours, as soon as they 
laid down for the night, found their pillow not 
only very disagreeable from a sickening odour 
that came from it, hut gifted with some curious 
hard knobs in it that were moveable. As it 
was out of the question to sleep upon it, he threw 
it on one side, and had the curiosity to examine 
it in the morning, when he discovered that they 
had not only bountifully put a handful or two of 
dirty live feathers into it, but the necks, with 
the heads to them, of two chickens and a duck. 
I have not the least doubt of the truth of this, 
for the slaves who attend to such matters have 
entirely thrir own way, and there is no one to 
examine their conduct. 

Tlie next morning I made loud complaints, 
and we were moved into No. 31, wliere the beds 
were much better, and we certainly gained by 
the exchange. This No. 31 was south of our 
first room, and more down hill, consequently 
the wooden steps at the entrance were much 
steeper and higher. They were ten in number, 
sharp, jagged, wooden things, a fall from which 
would m most cases produce a broken limb, as 
they were at an inclination of about 55°. It 
was not long before an instance was afforded 



of the danger attending such contrivances. A 
respectable old lady, stout, and slow in her 
movements, who inhabited a cabin below ours^ 
hearing the tea-bell ring, and hurrying to obey 
the summons, thought she could get quicker 
down by going out at the eastern than at the 
western door ; and the poor dear lady was not 
mistaken in her conjecture, for having reached 
the steps, she prudently thought she would take 
hold of the knob of the door and see if it was 
well shut ; but, unluckily, taking hold of the 
key instead of the knob, and giving it a jerk, it 
came out, and she made a regular somerset be- 
fore she got to the bottom, happily without break- 
ing any limb. This and other inconveniences 
induced me to apply again to Mr. Anderson, who 
had taken rather a complaisant turn ; he ac- 
cordingly moved us to Compulsion Row, a line 
of cottages made with frames instead of squared 
logs, the roofs of which were not quite finished. 
Their exterior looked tolerably well, and at any 
rate they were new and would be sweet ; be- 
sides, they had a small private portico before 
them which afforded some shade. The sound 
of the carpenters' hammers and saws presented 
an objection to our emigrating to this colony ; 
but we saw advantages in the change which de- 
termined us to move, especially as the cottage 
offered to us actually contained two rooms, the 
precious privileges of which were beyond all 
estimation. Taking, therefore, an affecting 
leave of our friends in Alabama Row, we gath- 
ered our household gods and goods together, 
and made a grand movement across the whole 
establishment of the White Sulphur. In three 
or four trips with my papers, fossils, &c., and 
the slaves carrying our trunks, in the course of 
an hour we were established in No. 3, Compul- 
sion Row. 

It was a very pretty, lively young lady who 
gave this name to the place. Mr. Anderson had 
put some families into private cabins, the pro- 
prietors of which suddenly appeared to claim 
their rights, and this brought him, as he feeling- 
ly said, " to a h'U of a nonplush." The weath- 
er was setting in very bad, and the proprietors 
not only insisted upon coming in, but had made 
their own servants carry their luggage into the 
cabins, so that it seemed to him as if he had no 
place to put the actual possessors in but the 
Land of Promise. The family that had to sur- 
render was in great distress, when suddenly 
Mr. Anderson's countenance beamed with that 
sort of satisfaction which sometimes illumines 
the features of genius, and which could hardly be 
surpassed by that of Newton when the discove- 
ry of gravitation relieved him from so many 
difficulties. "I have it," exclaimed he: "you 
shall go to the new buildings ; they are not quite 
finished, but you will be comfortable. Boys, 
take the luggage over directly." The parties 
followed their trunks, came to the buildings, 
which were ceiled tightly in, with clap boards, 
the doors were hung, and things looked quite 
nice outside. But when they got in, they found 
that half of the roof not seen from the road 
without any covering whatever, except the raft 
ers that were waiting for the shingles or wood- 
en tiles ; the floors also were full of chips anC 
shavings, and the hearths were not laid. Very 
soon after they got into the house and its inter- 
esting secrets, it began to rain hard ; and there 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



25 



"being (inly half a roof, 1 hey might as well al- 
most have l)een out of doors. Then came loud 
complauits and remonstrances to the grand func- 
tionary, will) declared that this was quite o«reas- 
onahle ; that he could not stop it raining ; that 
nohody but the carpenter could do that ; and he 
promixed that he should do that to-tnorrow. Un- 
der these circumstances the family, not liking 
to take up their abode on the high road, made 
the best they could of it, and stayed in the half 
cottage by compulsion. This is one of the in- 
stances of the confusion produced by a fraudu- 
lent system of pretending to accommodate ev- 
ery body, when there is only room for a few. 



CHAPTER V. 

State of Society at Compulsion Row— Fine flavour of tiie 
Oysters at New Orleans.— Priv.ite Cabins at the Springs 
—A Cyclopean Kitchen— Merciful Plan of Killing Bul- 
locks with the Rifle — Extraordinary performances at 
Dinner— Mr. Wright's Shanty in the Woods— Generals 
who liiive never been Soldiers— The Ferryman and the 
Traveller without a title. 

If I had heard this story before we moved 
into Compulsion Row, we should certainly have 
never been inhabitants of it. Our portico was 
common to two cottages united by one roof. 
Each cottage had two rooms of a sufficient size, 
and as far as space went we were satisfied ; the 
roof also was tight, but there was no ceiling to 
either of the rooms, and we looked up upon the 
rafters. On examining our premises a little 
more particularly, we were sorry to perceive 
that the partition-wall, which was common to 
us and the next cottage, was only carried up 
part of the way to the roof; all above the line 
where a ceiling was intended to be placed to di- 
vide the lower from the upper room, was entirely 
open space, except where tiie rough brick chim- 
ney reared itself up in a rather uncomely man- 
ner, so that if a quarrel had existed betwixt us 
and our neighbours, we could have carried on 
the war by throwing missiles at each other, 
with almost as much facility as if there had 
been no wall at all. The inconvenience arising 
from this "bad state of the fences" soon mani- 
fested itself. We heard the door of the adjoin- 
ing cabin open, followed by the sound of heavy 
footsteps of several coarse men, as we soon dis- 
covered, by the loud, drawling, unceasing vulgar 
conversation they got into. We had, however, 
no blaspheming, and this I was grateful to them 
for ; but in its place we had such a torrent of 
ungrammatical holdings forth about temperance 
societies, Sunday schools, tracts, and the utter 
wickedness and lost state of everybody but them- 
selves, that at times many persons would, I 
dare say, have felt it quite a relief if they had 
taken to cursing and swearing. When we re- 
turned to our cottage for the night, these self- 
righteous persons seemed to be still labouring to 
express their spite against their fellow-creatures. 
More stupid, disgusting stuff I never listened to, 
than that which came from these conceited, 
selfsanctitied, canting jackasses, nor in my 
opinion can anything tend more to suppress true 
religious feeling than such contemptible trash as 
they uttered. They were all democrats, too, to 
a man, which made them quite perfect. In the 
morning we were awoke by their hawking and 
D 



spitting, and beginning to talk as insipidly and 
disgustingly as ever. 

During the next day, these farthing candles 
to lighten the Gentiles were exchanged for an- 
other set of a different kind, equally low and 
vulgar, but without their canting. This new 
company, four in number, with two very small 
beds to sleep in, were constantly engaged in dis- 
putes about bacon — not Bacon, the great philos- 
opher of England, but salt bacon of Virginia. 
One of them maintained that in " the hull woorld 
there was no sich bacon as Virginia bacon." 
Another, who was a Kentuckian, felt himself 
hurt by this observation, and put in an immedi- 
ate rejoinder, saying, "I allow the Virginians 
do flog all mankind at praising themselves, and 
their bacon might be pretty good, but it war'nt 
to be compared, no, not for a beginning of a 
thing, to the bacon of the western country, 
where the land was an almighty sight finer, pro- 
duced better corn, and, of course, made better 
hogs." The Virginian now became nettled, and 
swore they had "more reel luxuries in old Vir- 
ginia than they had in the hull woorld" and ask- 
ed the Kentuckian if they had "oysters in Ken- 
tucky, and clams, and sich-like ;" finishing with 
a declaration that the finest land in the "hull 
woorld" was in Southampton County. These 
oysters silenced the Kentuckian, who, living far 
in the interior, had never seen any ; but a resi- 
dent of the state of "71fas«asippi," who could 
not stand this boast of fine land, put it to the 
Virginian whether they could grow sugar in 
Southampton County, and added that he had 
" always heer'n that the hawysters of New Or- 
lecns had sich a o?taccountable fine flavour, that 
they would knock the hawysters of Old Virginny 
into their ninety-ninth year any day." " I 
reckon they get that from the yellow fever," re- 
joined the Virginian. This is pretty much a 
specimen of the conversation of these noisy fel- 
lows, who having come together in the stage 
coach, Anderson, to our great discomfort, had 
crammed into this room. I had opportunities 
afterwards of seeing these persons in the porti- 
co, and their external appearance corresponded 
to their conversation ; they were ill-dressed, 
vulgar-looking fellows, drawn from the class of 
slave-dealers and land speculators. 

Language cannot do justice to the scenes we 
witnessed, and through which we had to pass at 
the White Sulphur Springs. It must appear in- 
credible to those who have heard so much of the 
celebrity of this watering-place, but who have 
never been here, to be told that this, the most 
filthy, disorderly place in the United States, with 
less method and cleanliness about it than be- 
longs to the common jails of the country, and 
where it is quite impossible to be comfortable, 
should from year to year be flocked to by great 
numbers of polite and well-bred people who have 
comfortable homes of their own, and who con- 
tinue to remain amidst all this discomfort, which, 
from the nature of things, they know is un- 
changeable. This requires some explanation. 

The waters of this region have been frequent- 
ed by the Virginians during a long period, for 
relief from the liver complaints and debilitated 
constitutions occasioned by the annual unhealth- 
iness of all those low parts of Virginia which 
e.xtend as far as the tide-water penetrates up 
the Atlantic rivers. The bilious and intermit- 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



tent fevers general to that flat country, compel 
almost all the proprietors who can afford to 
leave their plantations, to fly to the salubrious 
air of the mountains, where they usually remain 
from July until the first frosts set in in October. 
"When these waters first became known, and be- 
fore roads were made, everybody came on 
horseback, rude huts were constructed for their 
personal accommodation by those who came, 
and the game with which the country abounded, 
■venison, partridges, and bear's-meat, supplied 
their tables. In time roads were opened, and 
families were enabled to come with greater 
comfort, and to bring articles of furniture and a 
few of the luxuries of life with them : this grad- 
ually led to settlements, and to a market at the 
springs for the productions of the settlers. The 
waters soon acquired a deserved celebrity, and 
■were annually resorted to by many of the most 
distinguished persons of Virginia. At length 
this part of the district became private property, 
and some of the visitors, to ensure themselves 
the greatest possible degree of personal comfort, 
entered into an agreement with the proprietor 
that he should build for them small wooden cab- 
ins, to contain two or three rooms. The ex- 
pense of erecting each of these cabins, not ex- 
ceeding 200 dollars, was to be defrayed by the 
person for whom it was built, the privilege being 
reserved to him and his family of occupying it 
whenever he or they came in preference to any 
body else, he being bound to leave the key with 
the proprietor when he went away, who had then 
the right to put other persons into it. These 
privileged visitors pay the same weekly charge 
per head for their board that all others do, and 
some of them bring their cooks and make an ar- 
rangement for a private table, so that they, not 
being obliged to mingle with the heterogeneous 
mass, have a degree of enjoyment that others 
cannot participate in. At present, the increased 
population and wealth of Virginia cause great 
numbers to resort to these celebrated waters ; 
but it so happens that the proprietor, Mr. Cald- 
well, is a man of a simple indolent, and inactive 
character, who pays no attention to his own af- 
fairs ; the consequence is, that he is unceasingly 
plundered by those who do look after them. 

It would be impossible for such a state of 
things to exist if the establishment were under 
the management of a person gifted with good 
sense and activity. The place might be made a 
mine of wealth to such a man. Everything con- 
curs to make the speculation both profitable and 
permanent. The wide celebrity of the curative 
properties of the water, the beauty and salubrity 
of the country, the prevalence of the opinion that 
it is necessary to drink the waters at least a 
fortnight, the residence during the whole of the 
summer months of so many genteel families, the 
affluence of intelligent individuals from every 
part of the Union abounding with pleasant and 
instructive information, are a sutficient guaran- 
tee for the certainty of the returns that would 
reward the exertions of the right sort of man. 
Indeed, if cleaidiness and order only prevailed, 
it would be the most delightful watering-place I 
have visited in the United States. To a lover 
of nature the country abounds in attractions, and 
when the day's excursions are over, what with 
social visits to families backwards and forwards, 
agreeable evening walks when the sun has de- 



clined, the news by a regular daily mail, the 
general and particular intercourse maintained 
amongst those who are acquainted with each 
other, and the re-union at night of the company 
in the ball-room, this establishment, situated in 
a romantic and plentiful country, might be con- 
verted into a refined rural residence, during the 
summer, for a thousand persons ; whilst the 
poor invalids who hie to this Bethesda, uniting 
the use of the waters with temperate exercise, 
a fine mountain air, and the pleasures of society, 
would bless the place to the latest day of their 
existence. If the proprietor were capable of 
accomplishing so much good, he would not only 
double his profits, which are said to exceed 
thirty thousand dollars per annuiri, but receive 
the praises of every one ; but abandoning the 
concern to Anderson and a pack of worthless 
{ree black servants, one-half of everything is 
wasted, and he is thus driven to contract for the 
cheapest things he can procure, and to give his 
guests the worst things that can be procured in 
the country. Milk, which is so plentiful at the 
Warm Springs, is not to be had here. The 
kitchen, which opens into the dining-hall, is a 
dark cavernous-looking place, resembling a sub- 
terranean furnace, with dirt and offal of every 
sort thrown upon the floor, whilst human beings 
are obscurely seen, some of them standing at the 
great fires and others running about as if they 
were so many Cyclops ; all of them are negroes, 
a circumstance of great importance to the one 
hundred and fifty private black servants in at- 
tendance here, who are thus enabled to get the 
choicest morsels to themselves, an advantage 
they avail themselves of to its fullest extent. 
Hence the prodigious waste, for they and the 
dingy Dinahs consume more meat, bread, sugar, 
and butter, than their masters three limes over, 
and only pay half-price ; so that the practice of 
turning white visitors away who have no ser- 
vants, and taking in those who have black ones, 
is a losing one to the proprietor, though he does 
not see it. A beeve and eight sheep are killed 
every day after dinner, and either wasted or 
consumed within the twenty-four hours. Con- 
tracts for these are made with cattle-drovers, 
who drive twenty or fifty, as the case may be : 
the usual price paid being three cents, or about 
three haffpence a pound for the meat when 
dressed, the hide and tallow being thrown in. 
When the lot is brought by the drover an aver- 
age animal is selected, killed, dressed, and 
weighed, and the whole lot paid for, per head, 
at the same rate. The rest are put into a field 
of thirty acres, closely fed, and one of them is 
killed every day. When the servants have 
dined, the butcher, with his attendants, goes to 
the field, selects an animal, has it shot with a 
rifle, and brings away the carcase in his waggon. 
These black fellows, who have very little feel- 
ing for dumb animals, or for anything but them- 
selves, one day put several balls into a poor bul- 
lock, which being furious, tore down the fences, 
and took to the woods; hearing of this, my 
son, who is an admirable marksman, went to 
the place, took the rifle from the negro, and the 
animal being overtaken, put a ball into its head 
at a distance of upwards of 100 yards, which 
cut the spinal marrow, and killed it instanter. 

The next day the people apprehending some 
similar difficulty from the cattle being very wild 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



27 



in consequence of having been chased the day 
before, came to my son and asked him to offici- 
ate again. Being curious to see the operation, 
I accompanied him to the field, where we found 
some difficulty in getting sufficiently near to 
them ; at length they drew up into a group, and 
the butcher having designated a black one with 
a small white spot on its forehead, which was 
in the midst of them, my son wailed till it pre- 
sented its head towards him, when he fired at 
about 150 yards, and the animal immediately 
dropped on its knees, and rolled over. It was 
dead before the butcher could run up to let the 
blood out. This is certainly a merciful way of 
killing horned cattle when the shot is a sure one. 
The ball upon this occasion went in about two 
inches from the top of the forehead, exactly in 
the centre, and from thence passed into and cut 
the spine. I never saw a neater shot fired. 
The animal was now skinned, dressed in a rude 
manner, and carried to the house, where part of 
it was cooked for supper .the same evening. 

People seem always to be eating meat here, 
and to have no choice whether it is tough or 
tender, fat or lean — at least you hear nothing 
which induces you to suppose so ; and, indeed, 
those who have a gross taste and voracious 
stomachs must fare well here, for there is any 
quantity of nasty looking dishes of animal food 
placed three times a day before them. 

But in this establishment, that might be as 
unrivalled in its comforts as it is in its natural 
advantages and beauty, everything is alike, a 
scene of dirt and confusion ; and a charming 
rural retreat from the heats of the summer is 
thus disgraced with all the filth and nastiness 
of a badly conducted hospital. Into the details 
of his affairs the proprietor never enters. His 
orders are to take everybody in, and never were 
orders more faithfully executed. The manner 
in which this over-peopled and under-fed place 
is daily provided for, is certainly unique. At 
six in the morning the first bell rings, and a little 
before seven the second bell announces that 
breakfast is on the table in the dining-hall. Now 
the doors of the cabins are thrown open, and the 
polite and the vulgar are seen converging from 
€very quarter to a scene of indescribable confu- 
sion and filth. On the dirty portico, in front of 
the hall, all assemble in a dense crowd as if 
some extraordinary exhibition was to be pre- 
sented, and there are three doors of entrance. 
Suddenly these doors are opened from within, 
and then it is important for every gentleman to 
take care of the lady under his charge. Having 
forced your way inside after a desperate squeeze, 
the next thing is to find your seat. Where 
three hundred have to sit in a place which 
scarce affords room for two hundred, it is better 
to be first than last. A single man stands no 
chance for a place if he is not on the alert ; yet 
I must do the visitors the justice to say, that 
although the motto is of necessity, sauve qui 
veut, perd, qui vcut, yet the claims of a lady 
seemed to be always promptly admitted. The 
only thing like system which is in favour 
of the visitors, is the having your name placed 
on your plate, as at the Warm Springs— a cus- 
tom absolutely necessary to avoid a general 
scramble for seats. We always found our 
names on our plates, which were placed in 
front of a dirty bench without a back to it. 



But who can describe the noise, the confusion 
incident to a grand bolting operation conducted 
by three hundred American performers, and a 
hundred and fifty black slaves to help them ? It 
seemed to me that almost every man at table 
considered himself at job-work against time, 
stuffing sausages and whatever else he could 
cram into his throat. But the dinner-scene pre- 
.sented a spectacle still more extraordinary than 
the breakfast. And, first, as to the cooking, which 
was after this mode. Bacon, venison, beef, and 
mutton, were all boiled together in the same 
vessel ; then those pieces that were to represent 
roast meat were taken out and put into an oven 
for awhile; after which a sort of dirty gravy 
was poured from a huge pitcher indiscriminate- 
ly upon roast and boiled. What with this 
strange banquet, and the clinking of knives and 
forks, the ratthng of plates, the confused running 
about of troops of dnty slaves, the numerous 
cries for this, that, and the other, the exclama- 
tions of the new comers, " Oh, my gracious ! I 
reckon I never did see sich a dirty table-cloth," 
the nasty appearance of the incomprehensible 
dishes, the badness of the water brought from 
the creek where the clothes were washed, and 
the universal feculence of everything around, 
the scene was perfectly astounding. Twice I 
tried to dine there, but it was impossible. I 
could do nothing but stare, and before my won- 
der was over everything was gone, people and 
all, except a few slow eaters. I never could 
become reconciled to the universal filth, as some 
told me they had got to be, and my wife would 
literally have got nothing to eat if I had not 
given a douceur to the cook, and another to one 
of the black servants, to provide her every day 
a small dish of fried venison or mutton, for 
which we waited until it was placed before 
her ; this, with very good bread — and it always 
was good — was her only resource. Much 
squeezed as we were at first, there was a sen- 
sible relaxation and more elbow-room in a very 
few minutes, in consequence of the great num- 
bers who had the talent of bolting their " feed" 
in five minutes. A gentleman drew my atten- 
tion to one of these quick feeders, who had been 
timed by himself and others, and who had been 
observed to bolt the most extraordinary quanti- 
ties of angular pieces of bacon, beef, and mut- 
ton, in the short period of two minutes and a 
half. This was a strange, meagre, sallow-look- 
ing man, with black hair and white whiskers 
and beard, as if his jaws had done more work 
than his brains. All the bolters went at it just 
as quick feeders do in a kennel of hounds, help- 
ing themselves to a whole <lish without cere- 
mony, cutting off immense long morsels, and 
then presenting them with a dexterous turn of 
the tongue to the anxious oesophagus, would 
launch them down by the small end foremost, 
with all the confidence that an alligator swal- 
lows a young nigger, into that friendly asylum 
where roast and boiled, baked and stewed, pud- 
ding and pie, all that is good, and too often 
what is not very good, meet for all sorts of no- 
ble and ignoble purposes. These quick feeders, 
with scarce an exception, were gaunt, sallow, 
uncomely-looking pel-sons, incapable of inspiring 
much interest out of their coffins, always ex- 
cepting, however, the performer with the white 
whiskers, whose unrivalled talent in the present 



28 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



state of the drama, might, perhaps, be turned to 
great account in some of the enlightened capi- 
tals of Europe. 

Chemical solutions, to be made perfect from 
solid materials in the proper time, require first 
a little mechanical aid, that the greatest possi- 
ble quantity of surface may be presented to the 
solvent power. If men would reason thus about 
the faculties of the stomach, the gastric juices 
woulfJ perhaps have a better chance of fair play. 
Nature has provided us with teeth for the me- 
chanical purpose, and if men will not assist ht r 
they must pay the penalty, and continue to be 
taxed with dyspepsia, and the ghastly physiog- 
nomies that not only afflict themselves, but those 
innocent persons who are compelled to look upon 
their unearthly visages. The consequences of 
this pernicious habit of quick feeding which is so 
general in America, I never perceived more stri- 
kingly than at this place. 

. The proprietor of this watering-place, in addi- 
tion to his plan of over-trading, has had recourse 
to another scheme which deserves the strongest 
reprobation. He lets one of his houses to a set 
of sharpers, who keep a public gaming-table, 
that is open day and night, where faro, roulette, 
rouge et noir, and other desperate games are 
played. Thus every direct encouragement is 
given to vice, and inducements held out to the 
vilest fellows in the country to flock to the place 
for the express purpose of preying upon the com- 
pany who support his establishment. Inconsid- 
erate and ingenious young men, who accompa- 
ny their families here, are thus exposed to the 
worst temptations, and frequently acquire habits 
that render them miserable for life. 

I can speak with more satisfaction of the ball- 
room, where the company has an opportunity of 
assembling every evening, and where younsr per- 
sons who love to dance can amuse themselves 
very well : for the musicians are far above the 
ordinary rate of those found at American water- 
ing-places. The refreshments too, which are 
handed about, appeared clean and very fair, a 
remarkable departure from the usual course of 
things here. Some flashy-dressed men whom I 
saw in this room, not connected with known 
families, but who merely appeared as bystand- 
ers, were pointed out to me as members of the 
co-fraternity of gamblers, who drop in here to 
sieze opportunities of inveigling the young men 
away to rouge et noir. Being an Englishman, 
I was asked by some ladies if I knew Colonel 
Smith of the British army, who had served at 
Waterloo, and answering in the negative, he 
was pointed out to me waltzing with a young 
lady. The colonel, for an Englishman, had a 
most suspicious-looking heard from ear to ear, a 
prodigif)us display of gold walcliguard, a gait 
that did not look very much like Waterloo, and 
a face with a pair of hairy jowls to it, so remark- 
able for low expression, that I could not help 
forming a very unfavourable opinion of him. 
Soon atter, drawing up to where he was stand- 
ing talking to his partner, not to hear what he 
was talking about, but to hear the sound of his 
voice, I detected my fine friend in a moment, for 
his language, whi(-h came out by mouthfuls, was 
of a low, flowery kind, quite unknown to gentle- 
men, and what more especially blew him up, 
was his attempt to keep down the drawling ver- 
nacular of the State of Mississippi ; in attempt- 



ing to save himself at that point he lost himself 
and Waterloo altogether. I now advised the 
brotherof oneof the ladies he had made dancing 
acquaintance with, to ask him what regiment he 
had served in, but the fellow equivocated so 
much that I had no longer any hesitation in 
giving my opinion of the true character of this 
swell, who, soon after perceiving the wind was 
no longer fair for him, ceased to come to the 
ball-room. This place was the only part of the 
establishment where cleanliness and decorum 
prevailed, for the reason, I suppose, that the 
enteel families who had their private cabins 
always attended it. But there, as well as every- 
where, a never-failing topic was the general dis- 
order, and dirt, and utter want of personal com- 
fort. 

For the last two days of our stay my stomach, 
was so entirely overcome by the disgusting fecu- 
lence of the dining-hall, that I absented myself 
at every meal, getting something occasionally 
to eat at a very odd fellow's, who had run up a 
shanty in the woods not far from the Springs, 
and which I had accidentally met with in my 
rambles. This man was named Wnght, and he 
had formerly kept an oyster-cellar atBaltimore. 
Any one who knows how to fry oysters, gener-'"\ 
ally knows how to fry anything else; and as/ 
Baltimore is a place that not only contains a ''! 
class of jolly citizens, but captains and no cap- , 
tains without number, of slave-ships and pirati- 
cal vessels, who live in oyster-cellars when they 
are on shore, it may be presumed that Mr. 
Wright came here to show his talent in that 
line. In fact he told me that having been for a 
short time last year to the White Sulphur, "the 
doings there was sich as he never seen afore," 
and perceiving an opening for his own talent, he- 
first secured the right to a small piece of land 
in the woods near to the road, without any body 
suspecting his object, then ran up a slight log- 
hut by way of experiment, and afterwards 
brought from Baltimore various kinds of confec- 
tionary, with Champagne, Madeira, claret, bot- 
tled ale, rum, brandy, gin, lemons, sugar, and 
indeed all the appliances of a jolly existence. 
He had also secured a quantity of ice, and had 
set up some rough tables, with leafy bowers 
over them, at which I have, upon various occa- 
sions, after a hard day's work in the mountains, 
had the justest cause to admire his skill in veni- 
son steaks, mutton chops, and in the concoction 
of inimitable ice punch. Here, too, when the 
thermometer was at 90°, we were always sure 
of getting a delicious glass of ice lemonade. 
At the period of my departure Mr. Wright was 
becoming a formidable rival to the bar-room of 
the White Sulphur, where cock tails, gin slings, 
gum ticklers, mint juleps, phlegm cutters, and 
other American sherbets, were brewed from 
morn to night for the crowds of spitting and 
swearing, cursing and coughing, smoking and 
stinking reel gentlemen that passed their time 
there ; and such was his success that his inten- 
tion was to extend his operations the succeed- 
ing year. 

One of the advantages I had derived from my 
residence here consisted in a great variety of 
designations that were given to me by different 
people. If we are to believe the professions ot 
Republicans, they abhor titles of every kind, yet 
they seem constantly to betray a confirmed han» 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



29 



kering after them; upon tlie principle, I sup- 
pose, that things whicii are very rare always 
have a high value placed upon them, and thai 
when diauionds are not to he had, weak people 
■will gratify their vanity by wearing paste. In 
Massachusetts and the New England States 
the plainest farmer, as soon as he is elected to 
the State Legislature, is metamorphosed into 
" Tlic Hommrahle Mr. Slick." In New York a 
young lawyer, for political services, is named 
Inspector-General of the Militia — an office with- 
out duties and without emolument, as tlie militia 
never assembles in a body — and so becomes 
dubbed General for life, although he may be 
turned out of his office the next election. A 
General Officer of the United States army once 
told me that he dined with the Governor of 
New York by invitation, and that whilst at 
table, hearing repeatedly, " Shall I have the 
honour of a glass of wine with you, General !" 
he at first took the compliment to himself, filled 
his glass, and looked for his man ; but as he 
always failed in catching his eye, he began to 
be more cautious, and at length perceived to 
his surprise, that instead of being the only 
General at the T.able, there was a very con- 
siderable sprinkling of them, not one of whom 
had ever been a soldier. But here, in Virginia, 
the rage for titles is greater even than at the 
north. Almost every person of the better class 
is at least a Colonel, and every tavern-keeper 
is at least a Major. Occasionally a few Kapims 
are met with amongst the stage-drivers, but 
such an animal as a Leiotenant only exists on the 
muster-roll of the Militia, for I never heard of 
any one having seen a live one in Republican 
America. A well known gentleman of Win- 
chester, in this State, related an arnusing anec- 
dote to me on this subject. Crossing the Po- 
tomac into Virginia, with his horse, in a ferry- 
boat, the ferryman said, " Major, I wish you 
■would lead your horse a little forward," which 
he immediately did, observing to the man, " I 
am not a Major, and you need not call me one." 
To this the ferryman replied, "Well, Kurnel, I 
ax your pardon, and I'll not call you so no 
more." Being arrived at the landing-place he 
led his horse out of the boat, and said, " My 
good friend, I am a very plain man, I am neither 
a Colonel nor a Major, I have no title at all, 
and I don't like them. How much have I to 
pay youl" The ferryman looked at him, and 
said, " You are the first white man I ever cross- 
ed this ferry that warn't jist nobody at all, and 
I swar I'll not charge you nothing." 

If the various people I had dealings with at 
this place had acted upon this principle with 
me, I should have saved a good deal of money ; 
for Mr. Wright, seeing me curious about rocks 
and shells, always called me Doctor; most of 
the people at the Springs, with whom I had 
formed an acquaintance, called me Colonel; 
and some of the blackeys that waited upon me, 
called me Judge. 



CHAPTER VI, 

The system of Alleghany Ridges caused by an upheaval 
from below, and the White Sulphur Springs a conse- 
quence of the movement— Gaseous contents of the 
■VV'ateis— VV^hite Rock Mountsiins — Horizontal FossU- 
iferous Strata in place. 



The Alleghany Mountain, or Backbone Ridge, 
mentioned at page 20, is the central part of this 
broad elevated belt which traverses so great a 
portion of North America. We had now cross- 
ed it. and found a sensible change in the general 
dip of the strata, a circumstance of itself suffi- 
ciently indicative of the origin of this great 
belt, a very brief account of which will now be 
given. 

The Alleghanies, which is the general name 
the ridges of this belt have obtained in North 
America, have their south-western termination 
not more than 200 miles from the Gulf of 
Mexico, and run through the continent in a 
general direction of north-east, far into that 
part of Canada which lies north of the St. 
Lawrence ; for although the distinct manner ia 
which the various ridges are separated from 
each other in the more southern parts of the 
belt is often all but lost in those northern parts, 
yet the great limestone valley, which more or 
less accompanies it throughout its extent, and 
which is most conspicuous in Pennsylvania, 
and that valley of Shenandoah in Virginia which 
has been spoken of at page 13, distinctly ap- 
pears in the vicinity of Lake St. -John, near the 
heads of the Saguenay River. The length, 
therefore, of this elevated belt cannot be far 
short of 1700 miles, and its breadth may be 
estimated from 80 to 120. That the whole 
series of ridges has been raised from a lower 
level, and that the maximum upheaving force 
has been in the direction of this Backbone 
Ridge, which is the most elevated of them all, 
is apparent from the general structure of the 
ridges; for although the more higlily com- 
plicated fractures and arrangement of the beds 
of the eastern ridges, where every form of dy- 
namic action appears to have been exerted, 
shows that a singular intensity of (orce pre- 
vailed there ; yet the general movement ap- 
pears to have been a simultaneous and undu- 
latory one, evidences of an anticlinal and syn- 
clinal bending being common to the entire belt. 
This movement, whether it commenced from 
the west of the east, was evidently less pa- 
roxysmal in the central part of the belt, for the 
rocks at the Backbone Ridge begin to dip west- 
wardly instead of easterly as they did before; 
and in advancing in a westerly direction to- 
wards the Mississippi, they gradually lose their 
inclination, and come more or less to the hori- 
zontal level. It is probable, therefore, that the 
mineral water of the White Sulphur has been 
liberated from its subterranean abode by the 
same sort of movement that has brought the 
waters of the Warm Springs to the surface. 
The White Sulphur Springs, so called not fVom 
any efflorescence of sulphur, but from the pale 
yellowish colour of the conferva' that you see 
around the sides of the spring, are on the south 
side of Howard's Creek, a pretty stream that 
rises to the north-east, and flows into the Green 
Briar river. In various parts of the valley, and 
in the vicinity of this stieain, I observed that 
the waters were tainted with sulphuretted hy- 
drogen, as well as tho-se at the White Sulphur 
Springs ; it is probable therefore, tliat if the 
stream vi'ere diverted a little from its course, 
other mineral springs equivalent in value to 
those now in use would be discovered. 

The gaseous contents of the waters are nitro- 



30 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



gen, sulphuretted hyJrogen, with perhaps small 
portions of carbonic acid ; hence they resemble 
the Harrogate waters in England, and like them, 
are not particularly agreeable to the taste, the 
sulphuretted hydrogen being nauseous, and the 
sulphate of magnesia and other constituents in 
them very bitter. I only drank of them once, 
and not being fond of nasty things, never had 
the curiosity to taste them again. The tempe- 
rature is moderate ; after a long rain it ranges 
from 61° to 63°, and is somewhat higher in dry 
weather ; but as perhaps it never rises higher 
than 65°, the waters cannot be said to be ther- 
mal in the sense that those are in the Warm 
Springs Valley, and only so in proportion to 
their excess over the atmospheric mean. The 
valley in which the sulphuretted waters are 
situated is very beautiful ; the outlines of the 
hills also are pleasingly rounded off, as decom- 
posing sandstones often are. In the dry beds 
of mountain brooks which abound here, quan- 
tities of fossil impressions on sandstone are 
found, producta, encrinites, &c., the bed of 
which, until the 23rd, I had not been able to 
find in situ. On that day my son and myself 
made a rather fatiguing excursion up the White 
Rock Mountain, one of the most conspicuous 
eminences in this part of the country, lying 
about west by south from the White Sulphur. 

The base of this mountain comes down to 
the Levvisburgh turnpike, about three miles 
from the spa, but hearing it was not very ac- 
cessible on this side, we began the ascent under 
the farthest peak to the south ; and getting en- 
tangled in a hunter's path, we at last thought 
we were too far to the south, and were ascend- 
ing the skirts of the main Alleghany ridge. In 
order to see where we were, we clambered up 
a very steep ridge on our riglit, at an angle of 
about 60°, and with great difficulty reached the 
top. On the other side there was a deep gloomy 
dell, thickly clothed with a forest that had yet 
been respected by man, and which seemed to 
be the proper abode of panthers during the heat 
of the day. From hence we saw the White 
Rock Mountain, which was the object of our 
excursion, distant at least two miles, and tower- 
ing above the little hills below. We had be- 
come so exhausted in clambering up the ridge 
where we were now standing, that our day's 
undertaking began to assume an importance we 
had not invested it with before ; and, afraid to 
waste our strength, which we should have done 
if we had attempted the mountain by way of so 
intricate a dell, we determined to retrace our 
steps, so that we lost three hours before we 
reached the point where we thought it advis- 
able to commence the ascent. 

There was a house about a mile from us, kept 
by a person called Dixon, and thither my son 
went to get some water and acquire informa- 
tion. On his return he reported that there was 
no path, that the mountain was excessively 
steep, and that if we got up — as his informant 
stated — we should not be worth sixpence when 
vfe got down. It is remarkable how incurious 
and indolent the white people of this district 
are ; they never enter upon any occupation un- 
less there is money to be made by it, or unless 
they are compelled to do so. Every man has 
a horse, hence you never see any one but a 
negro on foot ; and they cannot comprehend 



why individuals shouiu wander from the high 
road, and place themselves in difficult and dan- 
gerous situations, especially when they are with- 
out arms to kill game, or to defend themselves 
with ; the difficulties, therefore, that present 
themselves to any little enterprise that is out 
of the common way, are very much magnified 
by them, and they always discourage rather 
than comfort you. After resting a short time, 
we determined to finish the adventure, and be- 
gan the ascent. We were two hours and a half 
before we reached the highest peak, which ap- 
pears to be about 800 feet above the level of the 
valley. The ascent commenced by a very rough 
slope, and a small ridge leading to the base of 
the main peak : its inclination in many places 
was near 60°, and every part of the soil and 
herbage was so glossy and slippery, as well aa 
the soles of our boots, that we were continually 
falling, and could never have got up without the 
aid of the branches and twigs that we held on 
by. We were constantly obliged to take breath, 
in order to make a rush at any other shoot above 
which appeared strong enough to hold us. 

The view from the summit of the peak, which 
is a rather flat level of about half an acre, is ex- 
ceedingly fine : the entire length of the valley is 
distinctly seen, but distance destroys the beau- 
ties of its details. Farther to the west you see 
the mountamous ridges that run through Green 
Briar Valley. We remained at the top only 
long enough to make a sketch of the scene, the 
geological features of which are less distinctly 
marked than those presented in the view of the 
Alleghany ridges from the Warm Springs Mount- 
ain. On our descent we deviated a little to the 
right, finding it so extremely steep as to be rath- 
er dangerous ; but seeing a rock projecting there, 
the beds of which appeared nearly horizontal, t 
went to it ; and it turned out to be the red fer- 
ruginous sandstone with fossils in situ, of which 
I had previously found specimens in the dry 
brooks. This rock is about 100 feet from the 
summit of the mountain. Having often found 
fragments of this fossiliferous rock midway in 
the valley, it is evident there has been a great 
destruction of the ancient surface. From this 
point we let ourselves, with the aid of the twigs, 
down a slope, which had a very sharp inclina- 
tion, and if it had terminated in a mural escarp- 
ment, our situation would have been somewhat 
precarious : as it was, we had a dark gloomy 
dell beneath us, and evening was approaching. 
Had any accident happened to either, or to both 
of us, we should have been very much embar- 
rassed, for men provided with nothing but port- 
folios, hammers, thennometers, and instruments 
for observation, would find them of very little 
use on breaking a limb. We had left our lodg- 
ings as early as nine a.m. ; we had been told it 
was but four miles to the top of the mountain, 
were unprovided with any thing, and night was 
setting in. Water was what we most suffered 
the want of Afraid of getting entangled in the 
dell beneath us, we retraced part of our steps, 
until we reached a point from which we could 
proceed on a horizontal line along the mountain 
side, until we regained that by which we as- 
cended. 

The thorny Robinia pseudo-acacia abounded 
so much that my clothes were torn to tatters ; 
and, being at length brought into as bad a situa- 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



31 



lion as Humphry Clinker was, I was obliged to 
tie them up with my pocket handkerchief, and 
exchange my short roundabout jacket for my 
son's longer shooting coat. When we reached 
the first peak, which we had called Little White 
Rock, we again deviated to the right, and, leav- 
ing the line of our ascent, plunged into the dell 
in search of water, about which we both of us 
felt very anxious. I soon perceived an unusual 
dampness in the air, which bore the smell of 
water, and, following a small dry brook some 
distance, we, to our great joy, found a spring 
of delicious water. Here we refreshed our- 
selves most luxuriously ; and, reinvigorated, at 
length extricated ourselves from the dell, and 
T'eached the high road. It was night when we 
reached our lodgings, exhausted and worn out, 
but supper was over, and we could not procure 
even a piece of bread. Dressing ourselves in 
haste, we got again in motion, and dragging our 
reluctant limbs to the place where Wright's 
shanty was, we sat down to a venison steak and 
a bottle of ale ; having finished which, we tramp- 
ed back again to the White Sulphur, and made 
our appearance at the ball-room, where our 
friends were beginning to inquire for us. We 
had been incessantly in motion for eleven hours. 

During my stay at this place I remarked that 
the adjacent hills, as well as the establishment 
of the Spring, were generally covered with fog 
until past eight in the morning, after which hour 
it is dispersed by the sun. In rainy weather 
the fog is unusually heavy, and then a little fire 
is acceptable both morning and evening. It 
rained on the 20th of August, and on the 21st I 
found the thermometer at seven a.m. gave 62° 
Fahr. for the temperature of the water, and 56° 
for the atmosphere. When the sun broke out, 
the thermometer rose immediately to 82°, and 
at noon to 91°. 

As to the curative properties of the waters 
of the White Sulphur Springs, they appear to be 
universally and justly admitted. I had various 
opportunities of conversing with intelligent phy- 
sicians who annually attend them, and they all 
concurred in stating their great efficacy in re- 
lieving persons afflicted with obstructions of the 
liver, dyspepsia, and the derangements arising 
from those bilious and intermittent fevers to 
which people who inhabit low marshy lands on 
the large rivers are subject. This opinion seems 
to be sustained, as well by the successful cures 
which they annually perform, as by reasoning 
founded on medicinal theories. These sulphur- 
etted waters have also obtained a reputation for 
being useful in cutaneous complaints. I had an 
evidence of this in my son, who arrived in this 
region troubled with large ringworms in various 
parts of his face, which were soon, by the use 
of the waters, successfully cured. But the most 
active causes, which perhaps concur with the 
waters to the restoration of health, are the jour- 
ney to the mountains, the exchange of a low in- 
fected atmosphere for the invigorating air of a 
salubrious region, the fine exercise enjoyed in 
the hills, and a relief from the cares of business. 
The inhabitants of the marshy lands of the tide- 
water districts live there at an expense of health 
both fearful and unavoidable, but the fertility of 
the land makes the temptation irresistible. Since 
man, therefore, will go and increase and multi- 
ply under such unfavourable circumstances, ex- 



changing health for wealth, it ought to be con- 
sidered a providential dispensation that there, 
should be a mountainous region containing so 
many precious resources so happily situated — 
midway, as it were, between the inhabitants of 
the low lands of the Atlantic Ocean, and those 
of the basin of the Mississippi. Here they can 
annually congregate, reinvigorate their sickly 
fraines, and by communicating to each other the 
information they bring from their respective 
countries, reciprocally enlarge their minds, carry 
home useful information, and become, in every 
sense of the word, more united as citizens of 
the same nation. 



CHAPTER VII 
Paying beforehand as bad as not paying all — Journey to the 
Sweet Springs — Beauty of the country — Gaseous and 
solid Contents of the Waters— Remarltable dam formed 
of Travertine — Ancient Travertine 350 feet above the 
level of the present Springs, probably derived from them 
before the Valley e.\isled — Proofs of the ancient Surface 
being lowered. 

This morning, August 27th, found us stand- 
ing, at five A.M., by the road side, with our lug- 
gage, ready to get into the stage coach, in which 
our places had been taken to the Sivcet Springs, 
and ■paid for two days before. Prudent people,- 
who wish to be quite sure of getting away from 
this Tophet, will of course secure their places 
several days beforehand by paying for them. 
We had now to learn that this was insufficient. 
When the coach stopped, I perceived it had its 
full complement of nine passengers inside. As 
it was perfectly clear that I had a right to places 
there, I immediately opened the door, when a 
general growl informed me there was no room. 
The greater part of the passengers were men, 
not of whom seemed disposed to stir. Those 
.•\mericans who are underbred, rather plume 
themselves upon their deference to ladies whea 
travelling, and I have often seen them somewhat 
officious in their politeness, ar far as trifles 
went ; as if they wanted to show that they 
knew it was not usual to be rude when it could 
be avoided, or to spit upon ladies' gowns when 
they could do the same thing over the side of a 
steamer. But as to their giving up any good 
substantial thing they were in possession of 
without an equivalent, that was a virtue that 
did not seem to ente.r at least into the contem- 
plation of this stage coachful of animals, for not 
one of them offered to resign his seat to my 
wife, though I told them my places had beea 
paid for two days, whilst scarce one of them 
had engaged his place previous to the preceding 
evening. I now appealed to the driver, who re- 
fused to interfere, and said we might get on the 
top. The very idea of putting a lady on the top 
of such a preposterous machine as that stage 
coach, was an absurdity. Looking more nar- 
rowly into the inside, to see if there was any 
decent person that I could hope to prevail upon,. 
I espied a dark ill-looking mulatto, and asked 
him civilly to ride on the top, but Mr. Gamboge 
liked his place as well as the rest, and refused ; 
upon which I called my son, and told the fellow, 
that if he did not without farther delay evacu- 
ate the premises, we would instantly drag him 
out neck and heels. Seeing we were in earn- 
est, he got out sulkily, and my wife get in. I 
mounted the top, and my son wisley prefeied. 



32 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



walking the whole 18 miles, for a cold bleak fog 
covered the Alleghany mountain, and I suffered 
very much outside, having put on nothing but a 
Jiglit dimity round-about jacket, expecting to 
Tide inside. The road was very good, and led, 
in a southern direction, througli many romantic 
dells and defiles of the Alleghany mountains, 
into a broad valley, where the Sweet Springs 
are situated, at the foot of an inferior ridge, here 
called Peter's Mountain, and which is probably 
a continuation of the ridge called Warm Springs 
Mountain, distant from hence about 50 miles in 
a north east direction. 

This ample valley is most agreeably diversi- 
fied with hummocks, spurs, and knobs jutting 
out from the mountains, all of them well wood- 
ed, and interspersed with numerous sequestered 
coves and wild looking little vales which sepa- 
rate them. At 11 miles from the White Sulphur 
we came to an enterprising settler's called Crow, 
who keeps a tolerably clean tavern, and here a 
small stream, in front of his house, runs on the 
limestone. Three miles from this place, and 
four from the Sweet Springs, the country opens, 
the mountains recede, luxuriant crops of corn 
are seen growing on the fertile bottom-land, 
through which the stream flows that takes its 
rise at the Sweet Springs; indeed all the adja- 
cent country possesses a great deal of beauty, 
which is increased by a lofty and very graceful 
knoll that rises innnediately south of the springs. 

The cabins of the establishment, though by 
no means as good as they might be, were rurally 
dispersed over the foot of the slope, and nu- 
merous handsome single umbrageous oak-trees 
served as a shade from the hot beams of the 
sun, and added much to the pleasing aspect of 
the scene. We were put into a cabin that was 
old and rude enough, but it was roomy and wa- 
ter-tight, and we had no disagreeable neighbours. 
What a delightful country this would be if there 
were none but clean well-behaved people in it ! 
Here then, finding a tranquil and agreeable rest- 
ing-place, we determined to remain a few days, 
and recover from the disgust we had experi- 
enced at the White Sulphur. We found an abun- 
dance of clean and good provisions, venison, mut- 
ton, good bread and butter, and excellent milk ; 
the pastry was also good and abundant ; and, 
amidst this general plenty and cleanliness, and 
the constant obligingness of Mr. Rogers the 
lardlord, and his family, we soon got into capi- 
tal good humour again with everybody and 
everything in this charming district. We heard 
of other springs not far from us; there were the 
snU sulphur, the red sulphur, and others; those 
who had visited them spoke highly of the clean- 
liness and abundance of those establishments, 
and I found that Mr. Caldwell enjoyed an undis- 
puted notoriety for everything that was offensive 
to the visitors to the mountains, a fact which 
•points to the inevitable results which attend in- 
dolence and want of capacity. I had such a 
long tour before me, that I had not time to visit . 
the other springs, and therefore devoted the 
short period I remained here to some very curi- 
ous natural phenomena in the neighbourhood, 
which had never attracted public attention, and 
the most remarkable of which was the manner 
in which travertine had been deposited here, 
both in ancient and modern times. 

The Sweet Springs break out very copiously 
at the foot of a pretty knoll, which extends about 



I three quarters of a mile to Peter's Mountain, 
' and are received in a neat reservoir appropria- 
ted to drinking, the surplus being conducted by 
different conduits into two separate baths. In 
the bath I found the temperature 72^ Fahr., the 
atmospheric temperature in the shade being 57° 
30', and in the sun 62°. I never remained in 
the bath more than five or ten minutes, and al- 
ways felt a delicious glow on coming out, which 
left me without lassitude, and had a very bra- 
cing effect. The gaseous contents were nitro- 
gen, carbonic acid in abundance, and perhaps a 
little oxygen ; all these came up very freely 
through the transparent fluid, as at the Warm 
Springs. The solid contents are carbonate of 
lime, sulphate of magnesia, sulphate of lime, 
and a very minute quantity of iron. The 
sweetish taste they have, which has given 
their name to the waters, is probably occa- 
sioned by a small quantity of magnesia in com- 
bination with carbonic acid. These are not 
the only mineral waters in this valley ; other 
springs come to the surface in it. Not more 
than half a mile to the north-east from the Sweet 
Springs, there is one of a similar character ; and 
at no great distance, various chalybeate springs, 
with some that contain sulphuretted hydrogen. 
But to return to the curious deposits of ancient 
and modern travertine. 

Before the waters of the Sweet Springs have 
left their source 100 yards, they begin to depos- 
it carbonate of lime, which has formed into a 
regular travertine on the sides of a brook run- 
ning near the enclosure of the establishment, 
and which pursues its course thence through 
the rich bottom of the valley. When the stream 
has flowed on for about two miles, it reaches a 
fall, where there is a saw-mill. This fall is 
about 550 yards wide across the valley, and is 
called by the country people the Beaver-dam, 
they supposing it to have been constructed by 
the beavers in past times when they existed in 
this valley. In fact, from its great width, and 
from the circumstance of many logs lying on its 
slope, it is not surprising that it should be 
thought to be the remains of one of the well- 
known structures of these animals. On exam- 
ining this fall and its broad slope, now entirely 
grown up with bushes and brakes, I was sur- 
prised to find that it was not a log-dam con- 
structed by beavers, but that the whole slope 
consisted of calcareous matter of the same 
character as that I had observed at the Sweet 
Springs. It was evident, therefore, that the 
stream, now only a few yards broad, had once 
covered the whole surface of the valley, and 
that the water, in passing over this fall, which 
must have been a very gentle one at first, had 
gradually built up a calcareous dam to its pres- 
ent height, over which its waters had at some 
period been discharged, as in the case of ordi- 
nary dams, over the whole breadth of 550 yards. 

In this curious phenomenon we have evidence 
of a surprising diminution in the volume of a 
thermal water; and reflecting upon this, it 
struck me that, if it were so, the flat land at 
the bottom of the slope below the dam must 
also have been covered by this calcareous stream 
in proportion to its breadth, and upon examining 
it I found it to be so, the travertine extending 
for a great distance on each side of the now 
diminisljed volume. I then followed the stream 
for three quarters of a mile, to a cascade forty- 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



33 



two feet high and about six feet wide, projected 
in a very beautiful sheet upon a strong bed of 
slate, highly inclined, which in many places 
was covered with a stalagmitie floor of traver- 
tine, a foot thick. On scrambling down to the 
slate, I had a front view of the cascade, and 
saw that it was projected from a bold mural 
ledge of travertine, from which depended an 
infinite variety of stalactitic rods and pilasters. 
Amongst other curious appearances, I observed 
a fir-tree (Abies Canadensis), about forty years 
old, in full life, with its roots and about seven 
feet of the stem entirely encrusted with calca- 
reous matter. 

Near to the foot of this wall of travertine, 
which was more than forty feet high, were 
openings to various caverns — similar to some 
spacious ones I had entered in the broad calca- 
reous dam higher up the stream — with numer- 
ous depending stalactites, resembling filigree 
work and petrified mosses, the fretted appear- 
ance of which is caused by the spray of the 
cascade. 

Mineral waters of this character, when they 
pass rapidly over shallow or stony places, or 
are in any manner thoroughly exposed to the 
action of light and air, are most prone to deposit 
their solid constituents, especially lime — a fact 
which accounts for these deposits. When this 
valley was formed, the stream probably passed 
over a gentle rapid, which, breakmg the water, 
would cause the deposit ; and this increasing in 
height until the volume of the stream was di- 
minished to its present width, or had contracted 
in consequence of the accumulation of vegeta- 
ble and alluvial matter, the slaty bottom, being 
dammed up, would be converted into a fertile 
valley capable of producing 10,000 bushels of 
maize annually: another beautiful instance of 
the beneficent manner in which provident Nature 
operates in favour of man. For here we see 
the springs of life not only issuing from unfath- 
omable subterranean depths to the surface of 
the wilderness, ready to restore the enfeebled 
constitution of the suffering Southerner, but 
be-hold them, after administering to his wants, 
mechanically engaged, by a simple process in 
harmony with the laws of nature, in producing 
the means even of sustaining those who come 
here to seek relief, and in embellishing every- 
thing around. These are amongst those charm- 
ing lessons we receive from Nature, which dis- 
pose our hearts to see a Divine care for us in 
everything. 

I was one day returning to my cabin with 
some fine specimens of travertine rods formed 
in concentric circles, and a collection of beauti- 
fully encrusted leaves in a state of perfect pre- 
servation, when I met Mr. Rogers, the landlord 
of the establishment, an old inhabitant, and a 
very intelligent and wctrtliy persun. He as- 
sured me that some years agu, when huniing 
deer in the hills, he had seen some rocks, at a 
great height above the valley, exactly resem- 
bling them. Being a man of good judgment, 1 
prnpu.sed to hiin to accompanv me to the place, 
and he cheerfully assented. Mounting his horse, 
and accompanied by me on foot, he led me about 
six miles in a north direction ; but so many 
years hatl elapsed since he had casually observ- 
ed the place, and the deep dells and hills, 
clothed with their everlasting woods, resembled 



I each other so much, that we passed the whole 
morning wandering about, climbing one hill 
and descending another, till I began to think he 
had been mistaken, and told him so. He would 
not admit this, and proposed trying another hill- 
side before we returned, called Snakerun Moun- 
tain, one of the outliers of limestone, of which 
there are many in this valley, and there I fol- 
lowed him. Being on horseback, and in ad- 
vance of me, I heard him holla, and knew from 
the cheerful sound of his voice that the game 
was found. As he approached, I saw he held 
in his hand a piece of rock, and, on joining him, 
I immediately recognised it for a piece of very 
ancient, weathered travertine. He now con- 
ducted me to the brow of a hill, at least 350 
feet above the level of the Sweet Springs, and 
there, to my great surprise, I saw a huge mural 
escarpment of ancient travertine skirting the 
brow of the hill, with innumerable weather- 
worn remains of old stalactites ; whilst the 
body of the escarpment resembled in every par- 
ticular the recent one at the cascade, abounding 
in large moulds of calcareous matter, which had 
formerly enclosed logs and branches of trees. 
The pendent stalactites, too, were constructed 
of concentric circles, so that I had the complete 
evidence before me that a stream of mineral 
water of great breadth, loaded with carbonate * 
of lime, had for a length of time passed over 
this brow, and formed this very ancient escarp- 
ment. The surface of the rock contained in 
many parts those circular perforations made by 
stones and gravel kept whirling about in them 
by eddies, which are vulgarly called pot-holes, 
and which are to be seen in the vicinity of all 
rapid streams. This Snake-run Mountain stood, 
as I found by compass. N.N E. by E. from the 
Sweet Springs ; and Peter's Mountain, in an- 
other part, where I got a peep of it through the 
trees, bore E. of the place where I stood. 

Here was an extraordinary phenomenon ! 

an immense deposit of travertine lying 350 feet 
above the present level of the spring from whicli 
it was probably derived ; for it seems to be 
.■susceptible of no other explanation than that 
the level of the valley was, at some remote 
period, much higher than it is now, and that the 
Sweet Springs were then at the same level 
with this ancient travertine. Before the valley- 
was scooped out by the currents v/hich retired 
—perhaps when the Alleghany ridges were ele- 
vated— it is probable that the whole surface of 
the now deeply sulcated region was of one con- 
tinuous level, and that the Sweet Springs came 
to the surface through the limestone, on a level 
with this ancient escarpment : but when the 
valley was swept out, the hard, compact lime- I 
stones resisted, and remained behind, as we 
now find them, in the calcareous hummocks; ; 
whilst the conglomerates, shales, and sandstones 
were broken down and carried away. Since ' 
that period, the softer parts of the formations 
occupying that part of the valley where the 
springs now are have been gradually worn 
down, permitting the stream to take a new 
direction, and make new deposits ; whilst the 
old travertine remains a monument of the an- 
cient level of the country, and one of the strono-- 
est geological proofs of the extraordinary changes 
that have been effected in the general surface. 
These mountainous countries have indeed 



34 



TRAVELS IX AMERICA. 



Tindercrone great cnanges. I have frequently 
found fragments of conglomerate sandstone (old 
red) abounding on the slopes and in the valleysl 
together with slabs and pieces of encrinital 
limestone, once, no doubt, at the same level 
with the beds near the summit of White Rock, 
near the "White Sulphur. The conglomerates, 
too, in this district, appear to have been in situ 
above the hishest existing summits of this re- 
gion, for I ha^•e repeatedly found bouldered frag- 
ments of them on their tops ; and near Bedford, 
in Pennsylvania, the same conglomerates are 
still founii in place on the sandstones of the 
Backbone ridge. 

The general order of the strata in this part of 
the country is but a repetition of the ordinary 
succession of slates, limestones, and sand- 
stones, the last of which are occasionally very 
ferruginous. Sometimes the surface of the sum- 
mits consists of slates, at other times of sand- 
stones : the modifications which the ridges have 
received appearing to be in proportion to the vi- 
olence of the movement which has elevated 
them, and the subsequent action of the retiring 
waters. Limestones generally form the bottom 
of the valleys, but where the ridges have taken 
the anticlinical form and have been dislocated, 
the limestones are often found on their flanks. 
i About live miles to the N.W. of CroWs, I found 
anthracite coal cropping out in a lerruginous 
sandstone, on the left bank of a stream called 
Fork Run, which drains a small valley : the 
strike of the coal, which contained a great deal 
of sulphuret of iron, was the same as that of 
the ridges, N.N.E. and S.S.W. This bed of 
anthracite had never been disturbed, being com- 
pletely covered under the tiat land of the valley, 
except where the stream has laid it bare. The 
coal seems to follow the flexure of the hills, as 
in the Alleghany ridges of Pennsylvania, a fact 
which I saw more clearly at another locality on 
the south side of the Sweet Springs .Mountain, 
not far from a Mr. Wiley's. The ferruginous 
beds at the top of the Sweet Springs Moimtain 
are sometimes very rich, and would probably 
give from 50 to 60 per cent of iron. The ridges 
about here are well wooded, and have generally 
a good soil to the top, capable of making excel- 
lent grazing land. With iron, and coal and 
limesume to flux it, 1 see no impediment to a 
thriving population estabhshing itself here here- 
after. Worse land, without these valuable 
minerals, will sell for 25 dollars an acre in many 
parts of the State of New York, whilst many of 
these fresh and fertile lands are offered, as I am 
informed, at one cent an ?.cre, to avoid the pay- 
ment of taxes. The tine bottom land, however, 
of the Sweet Springs is not to be purchased at 
that rate ; a great portion of it is already culti- 
vated, and produces heavy crops of corn, being 
composed for many feel of dark-coloured vege- 
table matter mixed upwiih the fragments of old 
land-shells, helix, paludina, anculotus, and a 
prodigious quantity of planorbis. in consequence 
of the presence of carbonate of lime. They 
were ditching a part of this fat land whilst I was 
there, which gave me an opportunity of making 
a collection of these shells : anicingst other 
things, I saw them take out from a depth of about 
six feet the cranium of an ox, which turned out 
upon inspection to be the skull of one those buf- 
faloes which inhabited the country before it was 



settled by the whites. It is not remarkabls 
that their bones should be found in such a situ- 
ation, as they usually congregate in places 
where salt springs and wild grass are to be ob- 
tained : indeed the buffalo must have frequented 
this valley within the memory of man, for there 
is an aged man near the White Sulphur who 
asserts that he has killed several animals of 
that race at the mineral spring there. 



CHAPTER VIII. 
Depart on foot across the Moanlains to Fincastle — Decidu- 
ous and evergreen Trees aliernating with the Soit— Fin- 
castle, !i V rginia Town— .Mr. Jolierson the Confucius of 
the United States — Free-thinhingand I'niversal Suffrage 
h-s grand Nostrums for giKxl Giivemment — .\ patriotic 
proposition lo blow Virginia "sky-high" to save its Con- 
stitution — Botetiiuri Sprins-s — .\ Camp of Xearo Slave 
drivers — The Coffle of Slaves crosses New Kiver man- 
acled and fettered — The Nesro drivers in i 



H.wiNG looked at the most interesting objects 
in this part of the country, and conhded my 
wife to the care of some iViends, my son and 
myself, having still an arduous tour before us 
as far as the ^lexican frontier, set off on foot at 
an early hour on September 3rd, for Fincastle, 
distant 29 miles, forwarding our luggage by the 
stage. It was a beautiful morning, and we 
soon got to the south side of Peter's Mountain. 
Here, in a small valley, on the property of Mr. 
Brooke, and at the bottom of another ridge 
called Pott's Mountain. I observed a strong bed 
of anthracite coal, bearing N N.E. ; it was a 
promising-lookinsr deposit which had not been 
disturbed, and therefore did not disclose the 
thickness of the vein. The limestone lies very 
near to it, and not tar distant there was a min- 
eral spring of sulphuretted hydrogen rising 
through a pyritous slate. Farther to the south, 
there is a lofty hummock, or hill, exceedingly 
steep, entirely composed of rich iron-stone, 
which we left the road to examine. Having 
rather fatigued ourselves here, we left the place 
and began the ascent of Pott's Mountain, up 
which the road ran for four tedious miles to the 
lop, near which we found a delicious spring of 
cool water with a large trough to receive it, and 
here we washed and refreshed ourselves. The 
view from the summit is very exiensive, pre- 
senting many extensive ridges on each side 
densely covered with the foliage of the unvary- 
ing forest, but without a vestige of the labour of 
man. except at the very top of the mountain, 
where, owing to there being an extensive de- 
posit of clay, a small pottery has been estab- 
lished forlhe purpose of manufacturingearthen- 
ware. .\s we descended the mouniain on the 
01 her side, we met with numerous springs 
coming out from beneath the clay, and at the 
foot of the ridge we came to a fertile piece of 
land where a Mr. Scott kept a small tavern. 
From hence we proceeded to Craig's Creek, 
which we reached long after sunset. Usually 
at such places there is a passing place made of 
squared timber for foot passengers, but here we 
could find none, and in the exceedingly faint 
starlight that disclosed things but imperfectly, 
we were quite uncertain which was ihe ford. 
There was no resource, however, but trying, so 
down we sat on the beach and stripped to it, 
and entered the stream which was about 150 
feet wide. What had appeared at first lo me- 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



35 



nace us with embarrassment now became a 
source of the greatest satisfaction, the tempera- 
ture af the water beinir, so very agreeable as to 
refresh our feet exceedingly, which were some- 
what bruised and chafed. Being always pro- 
vided with towels for emergencies of this kind, 
we sal down very cheerfully to refresh our- 
selves as soon as we had reached the other 
side, and then pursued our walk for an hour, 
which brought us to a tavern kept by a person 
of the name of Price, where we got some re- 
freshment and were glad to repose ourselves 
after an unceasing tramp by a tolerable night's 
rest. We had walked 25 miles .since eleven in 
the morning, over a very rough country. 

In the morning I examined a sulphuretted 
spring near the house, and advised the proprietor 
to divert the course of a brook which ran too 
near it, for, being at a higher level, the waters 
of the brook mixed themselves with those of the 
spring, and not only diluted it, but brought its 
temperature down to 52°. After breakfast we 
ascended Caldwell's Mountain, another emi- 
nence which separated us from the valley in 
which the town of Fincastle is built, and which 
is a continuation of the great limestone valley 
running west from Harper's- ferry : in the ferru- 
ginous slaty sandstones towards the top, we 
found large elliptical nodules of ironstone embed- 
ded in concentric circles, some of which were 
three feet long and twelve inches broad. On 
descendmg the mountain we took a sketch of 
some conical peaks on the summit of an adja- 
cent ridge, wliich were separated from each 
other by deep sulcated depressions coming down 
its side ; these showed a bright green foliage of 
hickory, maple, chestnut, and other deciduous 
trees, whilst the ribs of the ridge on each side 
of the depressions showed nothing but dark 
green evergreens of the fir kind. The clouds 
partially covering the cones of these peaks 
whilst the sun was gleaming upon their sides, 
they made an exceedingly pretty and rather un- 
common picture, for the contrast between the 
foliage of the evergreens and the summer-leav- 
ed trees — occasioned, I supposed, by a curious 
alternation of slate and sandstone — was very 
strong. Here we sprung the only head of game 
we saw during the walk ; a fine large cock 
pheasant (letrao cupido), as they are called here, 
with his crest and whiskers erect, was strutting 
about in a wild way and chicking like a hen. 
After observing for a time his fantastic move- 
ments, which resembled those of a pouter 
pigeon, with great pleasure, we alarmed him, 
and he rose with a loud cuck-a-ra-ra voice and 
a strong wing, and flew arross the dell with 
great velocity. This pleasing incident relieved 
the solitude of the scene very agreeably. At 
the bottom of the mountain we came upon the 
limestone again, and on our approach to Fincas- 
tle we passed an opulent-looking plantation 
with a very respectable mansion-house, sur- 
rounded with a stout limestone wall. As this 
had been taken in blocks from a quarry in the 
neighbourliood, I examined it, and found that it 
contained some fine specimens of producta. 

Fincastle is a monument of colonial times, 
taking its name from one of the titles of Lord 
J M more, who was Governor of Virginia when 
the rebellion* broke out there in 1775. The 
principal Street of this straggling village is very 



narrow, hut the place contains some respecta- 
ble families, and just at this period the court c* 
justice was sitting, and which occasioned a great 
bustle of lawyers and country-people. To judge 
from appearances the science of law seemed to 
be a litlle more cultivated than any other in Vir- 
ginia ; for, with the exception of a few country- 
gentlemen of the ancient families, all the mea 
of any influence in the Slate appear to be law- 
yers. They fill the Slate legislature and direct 
all its proceedings ; they represent the State ia 
Congress, and take their full share there of all 
the talking and all the political intriguing that is 
going on ; and as it occurs in most of the other 
States, the political parties are frequently chang- 
ing their ground as well as their designation, to 
suit the ''cry" under which their candidates are 
brought forward ; so that whilst they all profess 
to be most religiously devoted to the mainte- 
nance of the Constitution of Virginia, they have 
forty difTerent ways of interpreting it, each of 
which is most stoutly maintained to be the 
true exposition of the Jeffersonian doctrines. It 
is well known to those who have travelled a 
great deal in the United States, that Virginia is 
one of the most agreeable parts of the Union, 
that there are many persons in it who eminently 
deserve the character of gentlemen, and that 
Virginians are, generally speaking, a lively and 
ingenious people, full of kind attentions to those 
who go amongst them. In the days of Wash- 
ington and the men of his time, the political 
topics of the day might be comprehended with- 
out much difficulty ; for although men of sense 
and character differed about the local applica- 
tion of measures, yet they were united in the 
support of practically good and intelligible prin- 
ciples of government : but the complexity of 
political opinions in modern times is so great, 
that a traveller who is merely passing througli 
the State, and has not paid particular attention 
to Virginian politics, is quite baffled in the at- 
tempt to understand what he reads or what he 
hears. 

The principal cause of this degeneracy from 
the straightforward and simple principles of the 
old school, is fairly attributable to that eminent 
person who is considered by many of his admi- 
rers in .America and in Europe to be the Confu- 
cius of the United States. Now whether this 
parallel is flattering to the memory of Mr. Jef- 
ferson or not, it would certainly seem to be true 
that he believed, as that antique philosopher did, 
that litlle was wanting to produce good govern- 
ment amongst mankind beyond a string of well- 
coiieocted abstract maxims ; he therefore be- 
queathed to his countrymen a set of opinions 
that were quite independent of anything taught 
by the Christian religion, and whici^ *^. - 
extent he had derived, di"-- ,„ , , ' '^' "* ^ . 
P-.i-.o cf fk • . -'""g his residence in 

Pans at the period of u,e French RevoUrrron. 
irom those Gallic philosophers who. dissatisfied 
vvith the con(i,t{„n of man as it develops itself 
through the various degrees of intellect, temper, 
and physical power with which Providence has 
endowed him, attempted to bring ail to a philan- 
thropic equality by the lively action of the guU- 
lotine. ^ 

Before Mr. Jefferson's time Virginia was a 
happy English colony, a better copy of the mo- 
ther-country than any of the other colonies. 
She had numerous independent country gentte- 



36 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



men, whose fathers, as the custom of the day 
was, had sent their sons " home" to be educated 
at Oxford and Cambridge, and she had an es- 
tablished endowed Protestant Episcopal Church. 
It was Mr. Jefferson who uprooted tiiat church, 
and confiscated the glebes and parsonages. 
His maxim was " to let religion take care of it- 
self," never attending to the obvious necessity 
of cherishing religion for the two important pur- 
poses of consolmg the poor and ignorant, and 
giving a Christian and wise direction to the 
power of the rich. Those grievances which 
the colonists had just reason to complain of 
from the British government, found in Mr. Jef- 
ferson an active exponent ; he soon became the 
leading patriot in his native State, and drew in 
many gentlemen, who disliked the man, to sup- 
port his ineasures. It was but a short time, 
however, which elapsed after the acknowledg- 
ment of the independence of the United States, 
and the establishment of the Federal Govern- 
ment, before he turned his attention to over- 
throwing the influence of the gentlemen who, 
with General Washigton at their head, had uni- 
ted with him in their opposition to the mother- 
country, and he was successful. 

In exchange fur a Federal Government rest- 
ing for its maintenance upon character and pro- 
perty, he succeeded in substituting one based 
upon free thinking and universal suffrage, two 
grand incarnations of fancied virtue totally with- 
out the principles they stood in the place of. 
Hence the necessity of all his political dogmas 
and maxims, to reconcile absurdities, most of 
which, like many other oracles, can be made to 
assume every possible phase by acute and inge- 
nious persons, when it is necessary to avoid the 
exposure of their intrinsic worthlessness. 

I was exceedingly amused by the conversa- 
tion at the public table of the inn where we stop- 
ped, at which a great number of country law- 
yers were assembled, most of whom were disci- 
ples of Mr. Jefferson. Nothing could exceed the 
extraordinary propositions which were brought 
forward and warmly defended by metaphysical 
subtleties of the wildest character. Every dis- 
putant asserted that the argument of his adver- 
sary was utterly subversive of the Constitution ; 
so that if the opinion of any one of them had 
been admitted to be founded on reason, it was 
clear that it would be at the expense of the Con 
stitution. A grave looking gentleman, who, 
from his conversation, I took for a Federalist 
of the Washington schnol, made a quiet obser- 
vation of that kind, which brought out one of 
the most loquacious disputants: thumping his 
hand upon the table, he exclaimed with energy, 
'^By * * -, before I'd let any man hurt the Con- 
stuu""" ^ haif's breadth, Id blow old Virginia 
sky-high '" T."^'" °'^" ^^ averting dangers from 
the'consiituti.m'by a hc-oic explosion of the 
Commonwealth itself, is an -nslructive illustra- 
tion of the practical tendency of Jeffersoman 
philosophv ; for it cannot but be highly encour- 
aging to the patriots of all countries who culti- 
vate the subtleties of metaphysical equality and 
universal suffrage, to discern in them a potency 
which, up to the present times, has not been 
equalled even by gunpowder. 

Finding it impossible to accomplish the whole 
of our proposed journey on foot, and being now 
\ipoa a road where the mail ran, we booked 



ourselves in the stage-coach, and started the 
next morning over an execrable road of knobby 
limestone, stopping a short time at Botetourt 
Springs, another name that reminded aie of co- 
lonial times. Here there is a mineral water of 
sulphuretted hydrogen, not much dissimilar to 
tliat of the White Sulphur. The establishment, 
when compared with the other Virginia springs 
I have visited, looks very respectable ; the 
buildings, which are wooden cabins elsew-here, 
are well constructed of brick, and placed in a 
neat quadrangle, at the end of which is the ho- 
tel, containing a large hall, with an excellent 
parlour well furnished ; every thing at the place 
looked comfortable, but there were only three vi- 
sitors there. A mile or two from these springs 
is Tinker's Mountain, which has a singularly 
symmetrical saddle-formed shape. Farther on 
we came to a small settlement called Big Springs, 
one of those immense natural basins of pure wa- 
ter not uncommon in limestone districts, and 
which seem to abound in this well-watered 
country. We next ascended to a poor sort of 
town called Christianburgh, forty-eight miles 
from Fincastle, on the way to which we crossed 
several branches of the Roanoke River, which 
empties into the Atlantic Ocean. 

Here we slept, and departing very early in 
the morning, found ourselves somewhat unex- 
pectedly upon an extensive table-land, not at ail 
cut up by ridges and valleys. This continues 
to New River, one of the tributaries of the Ka- 
nawha, which empties into the Ohio. We 
found the descent to this stream rather rapid, 
and the river broader than any we had passed, 
being about 200 yards wide. On this water- 
shed the waters which flow into the .\tlantic, 
and those which flow into the Gulf of Mexico, 
have their sources, in some places very near to 
each other. 

Just as we reached New River, in the early 
grey of the morning, we came up with a singu- 
lar spectacle, the most striking one of the kind 
I have ever witnessed. It was a camp of negro 
slave-drivers, just packing up to start ; they 
had about three hundred slaves with them, who 
had bivouacked the preceding night in chains in 
the woods ; these they were conducting to Nat- 
chez, upon the Mississippi River, to work upon 
the sugar plantations in Louisiana. It resem- 
bled one of those coffles of slaves spoken of 
by Mungo Park, except that they had a caravaa 
of nine waggons and single-horse carriages, for 
the purpose of conducting the white people, and 
any of the blacks that should fall lame, to which 
they were now putting the horses to pursue 
their march. The female slaves were, some 
of them, sitting on logs of wood, whilst others 
were standing, and a great many little black 
children were warming themselves at the fires 
of the bivouac. In front of them ah, and pre- 
pared for the march, stood, in double files, about 
two hundred male slaves, mariackd and chained 
to each other. I had never seen so revolting a 
sight before ! Black men in fetters, torn from 
the lands where they were born, from the ties 
they had formed, and from the comparatively 
easy condition which agricultural labour affords, 
and driven by white men, with liberty and equal- 
ity in their mouths, to a distant and unhealthy- 
country, to perish in the sugar-mi]is of Louisi- 
ana, where the duration of hfe for a sugar-mill 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



slave does not exceed seven years ! To make 
this spectacle sfll more disgusting and hideous, 
some of the principal while slave-drivers, who 
were tolerably well dressed, and had broad- 
brimmed while hats on, wil/i black crape round 
(hem, were standing near, laughing and smokmg 
cigars. 

Whether these sentimental speculators were, 
or were not — in accordance with the language 
of the American Declaration of Independence 
— in mourning "from a decent respect for the 
opinions of mankind," or for their own callous 
inhuman lives, I could not but he struck with 
the monstrous absurdity of such fellows putting 
on any symbol of sorrow whilst engaged in the 
exercise of such a horrid trade; so wishing 
them in my heart all manner of evil to endure, 
as long as there was a bit of crape to be obtain- 
ed, we drove on, and having forded the river in 
a flat-bottomed boat, drew up on the road, 
where I persuaded the driver to wait until we 
had witnessed the crossing of the river by the 
"gang," as it was called. 

It was an interesting, but a melancholy spec- 
tacle, to see them effect the passage of the riv- 
er : first, a man on horseback selected a shallow 
place in the ford for the male slaves ; then fol- 
lowed a waggon and four horses, attended by 
another man on horseback. The other wag- 
gons contained the children and some that were 
lame, whilst the scows, or flat-boats, crossed 
the women and some of the people belonging to 
the caravan. There was much method and 
vigilance observed, for this was one of the sit- 
uations where the gangs — always watchful to 
obtain their liberty — often show a disposition to 
mutiny, knowing that if one or two of them 
could wrench their manacles off, they could 
sotm free the rest, and either disperse them- 
selves or overpower and slay their sordid keep- 
ers, and fly to the Free States. The slave- 
drivers, aware of this disposition in the unfor- 
tanate negroes, endeavour to mitigate their dis- 
content by feeding them well on the march, and 
by encouraging them to sing " Old Virginia nev- 
er tire," to the banjo. 

The poor negro slave is naturally a cheerful, 
laughing animal, and even when driven through 
the wilderness in chains, if he is well fed and 
kindly treated, is seldom melancholy ; for his 
thoughts have not been taught to stray to the 
future, and his condition is so degraded, that if 
the food and warmth his desires are limited to 
are secured to him, he is singularly docile. It 
is only when he is ill-treated and roused to des- 
peration, that his vindictive and savage nature 
breaks out.* But these gangs are accompanied 



* This practice of driving gangs of slaves through the 
country to the southern nj;urkets has been to a great ex- 
tent discontinued on account of the dangers and inconve 
niences it is unavoidably subject to : for the drivers are 
not all equally prudent and vigilant ; often outraging the 
slaves by brutal trealraent, and then trusting too implicitly 
to their apparent humility. Watching their opportunity, 
the s!;ives have sometimes overpuwered them, put them 
to death, and dispersed themselves. The attention of 
these speculators in men has thus become tiu-ned lo the 
expediency of embarking them at some port in one of ihe 
slave- holding states, and sending them to New Orleans 
by sea. 

This scheme, however, as far as regards the speculators, 
seems to be obnoxious to the same (ibjecli<in that applies 
to marching them by land, and amoimis, in fact, to the 
introduction of the domestic slave-trade of the United 
States upon the great highway of nations. In the case 



by Other negroes trained by the slave-dealers to 
drive the rest, whom they amuse by lively sto- 
ries, boasting of the fine warm climate they are 
going to, and of the oranges and sugar which 
are there to be had for nothing : in jiroportion 
as they recede from the Free Slates, the danger 
of revolt diminishes, for in the Southern Slave- 
States all men have an interest in protecting 
this infernal trade of slave-driving, which, to 
the negro, is a greater curse than slavery itself, 
since it too often dissevers for ever those affect- 
ing natural ties which even a slave can form, 
by tearing, without an instant's notice, the hus- 
band from the wife, and the children from their 
parents ; sending the one to the sugar planta- 
tions of Louisiana, another to the cotton-lands 
of Arkansas, and the rest to Texas. t 



of the Creole, slave-transport, which occasioned so much, 
excitement in the United Slates, and led to a protracted 
negotiation between the Federal Government and the 
Government of Great Britain, the cargo of slaves over- 
powered their keepers whilst on the voyage, and loot 
refuge in a British dependency. They were reclaimed as 
property ; but as our laws admit of no property in human 
beings, the legality of the claim was denied, and the denial 
was acquiesced in. There seems to be no distinction, in 
the eyes of humanity, between chaining and transporting 
slaves by land or by sea, and any European government 
that would recognise claims for aid or compensation, 
founded upon the inabilitj- of slave-drivers to protect their 
interests upon the high seas, although when bound from 
one American port to another, would substantially give 
countenance to the slave-trade. 

t One day, in Washington, whilst taking a hasty dinner 
preparatory to a journey, I received a letter from a benevo- 
lent lady^ioAicA letter I have preserved— entrealins me in 
the most pressing terms to endeavour to procure the en- 
largement of a slave called Manuel, who had been her 
servant. She stated that he had been decoyed to a public 
slave depot in the skirts of the city, had been seized and 
detained there, and was going to be sold into the Southern 
States, and that the delay of an hour perhaps would be 
too late for interference. This poor fellow was the prop- 
erty of the principal hotel-keeper in the place, a person 
called G*****; who, when the Congress was not in 
session, and he had little or no occupation for his slaves, 
was in the habit of hiring them out to families by the 
month, as domestic servants. This Manuel, who was 
auout twenty-six years old, had belonged to his present 
master a great many years, was very useful in the hotel, 
and had married a female slave born in G * * * * *'s house, 
by whom he had four or five little children. I had ob- 
served him when visiting at this lady's, and was struck 
with his pleasing manners. She informed me at the time 
that he was in everything exemplary in his conduct, and 
that on Sundays he always went to church with his wife 
and children, whom he w'as training up in the most admi- 
rable manner. 

Inconvenient in many respects as it was for me to inter- 
fere at that time in a matter of this kind, I felt that I should 
not be satisfied with myself if I disregarded her entreaties, 
and, therefore, determined instantly to go to this slave- 
depot. In a few minutes a carriage took me to a large 
brick edifice in the suburbs, and being directed to a room 
where the superintendent was, I went there, and found 
that it was neither more nor less than a jail that I was in ; 
manacles, fetters, and all sorts of offensive things were 
lying about, and on casting a look at the hard features of 
the superintendent, I saw at once that he was the jail- 
keeper. Informing him that I wished to see a coloured 
man of the name of Manuel, he took up a ponderous key 
and conducted me to a door with chains drawn across it, 
and, unbarring and unlocking it he called the poor fellow, 
whom I immediately recognised. This door opened into 
a very spacious prison, where several coloured people 
were walking about, but without manacles ; and stepping 
into it, I asked Manuel what had h-.ppened. He then 
told me the following story : 

His master had sent him to the depdt with a message to 
the superintendent, who, on his arrival, locked him in the 
prison. Towards evening his master told his wife that he 
was surprised Manuel had not returned, and she had bet- 
ter take the children a walk there to see what was the 
matter. Thus were these poor unsuspecting people all 
entrapped. Manuel on the arrival of his wife and family 
saw into the plot he bad been the victim of, and coupling 
it with some other circumstances that had not struck hun 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



Revolting as all these atrocious practices are, 
still lliis "Institution" — a term with which 
some of the American statesmen dignify slavery 
and the circumstances inherent to it — as it ex- 
ists in the United States, does not appear to me 
to have heen fairly placed before the judgment 
of mankind by any of those who have written 
concerning it. All Christian men must unite in 
the wish that slavery was extinguished in every 
part of the world, and from my personal knowl- 
edge of the sentiments of many of the leading 
gentlemen in the Southern States, I am persua- 
ded that they look to the ultimate abolition of 
slavery with satisfaction. Mr. Madison, the 
Ex-President, with whom I have often conversed 
freely on this subject, has told me more than 
once that he could not die in peace if he be- 
lieved that so great a disgrace to his country was 
not to be blotted out some day or other. He 
once informed me that he had assembled all his 
slaves — and they were numerous — and oflered 
to manumit them immediately ; but they in- 
stantly declined it, alleging that they had been 
born on his estate, had always been provided 
for by him with raiment and food, in sickness 
and in health, and if they were made free they 
would have no home to go to, and no friend to 
protect or care for them. They preferred, there- 
fore, to live and die as his slaves, who had ever 
been a kind master lo them. This, no doubt, 
is the situation of many humane, right-thinking 
proprietors in the Soutliern States ; they have 
inherited valuable plantations with the negroes 
born upon them, and these look up to their mas- 
ter as the only friend they have on earth. The 
most zealous, therefore, of the Abolitionists of 
the Free States, when they denounce slavery, 
and call for its immediate abolition, overlook the 
conditions upon which alone it could be effect- 
ed. They neither propose to provide a home 
for the slaves when they are manumitted, nor a 
compensation to their proprietors. Without 
slaves the plantations would be worthless ■. there 
are no white men to cultivate them ; the newly- 
freed and improvident negroes could not be 
made available, and there w^ould be no purcha- 



at the time, now perceived that his master, wanting to 
raise a sum of money, had sold them all. The poor fel- 
low brought his wife and neat little children to me : she 
was a modest, well-dressed woman, appeared very wretch- 
ed at the idea of being sold away from her husband and 
her children, and implored me most earnestly not to leave 
them there. On seeing me, they had conceived the hope 
that I had come to buy them all. to prevent their being 
separated, and they both protested in the most vehement 
and affecting way that they would be faithful to me until 
death. I told them that was impossible, that I never did 
own a slave, and never intended to own one ; that Mrs. 

had written to inform me of their misfortune, and 

that I would do all I could to pecsuade gome of my friends 
to do what they wished me to do. 

Leavinj; a little money with them, I drove to the house 
of a genileinan who knew what it was most advisable 
to do in such a case, but he gave me veiy httle conso- 
lation. He said that he knew of several transactions 
ofG***** of a similar character ; that he had more 
than once purchased slaves to prevent their being sent 
•to the South, and that he would interest himself in the 
affiiir, but that it would take some time to put anything 
in train for their relief. I left W.ashinston that evening, 
and on my relurn some months afterwards, had the satis- 
faction of learning Uiat the publicity I had given to the 
affair had prevented the separation of these unfortunate 
but respectable persons. 



sers to buy the land, and no tenants to rent it. 
The Abolitionists, therefore, call upon the plant- 
ers to bring ruin upon their families without 
helping the negro. In the mean time the Abo- 
litionists, not uniting in some great practical 
measure to effect the emancipation of ail slaves 
at the national expense, suffer the evil to go on 
increasing ; the negro population amounts now 
to about two millions, and the question — as to 
the Southern States — will, with the tide of time, 
be a most appalling one, viz., whether the white 
or the black race is to predominate. 

The uncompromising obloquy which has been 
cast at the Southern planters, by their not too 
scrupulous adversaries, is therefore not de.serv- 
ed by them ; and it is but fair to consider them 
as only indirectly responsible for such scenes 
as arise out of the revolting traffic which is car- 
ried on by these sordid, illiterate, and vulgar 
slave-drivers — men who can have nothmg what- 
ever in common with the gentlemen of the 
Southern states. This land traffic, in fact, has 
grown out of the wide-spreading population of 
the United States, the annexation of Louisiana, 
and the increased cultivation of cotton and su- 
gar. The fertile lowlands of that terrilory'can 
only be worked by blacks, and are almost of 
illimitable extent. Hence negroes have risen 
greatly in price, from 500 to 1000 dollars, accord- 
ing to their capacity. Slaves being thus in de- 
mand, a detestable branch of business — where 
sometiines a great deal of money is made — has 
very naturally arisen in a country filled with 
speculators. The soil of Virginia has gradually 
become exhausted with repeated crops of tobac- 
co and Indian corn ; and when to this is added 
the constant subdivision of property which has 
overtaken every family since the abolition of en- 
tails, it follows of course that many of the small 
proprietors, in their efforts to keep up appearan- 
ces, have become embarrassed in their circum- 
stances, and, when they are pinched, are com- 
pelled to sell a negro or two. The wealthier 
proprietors also have frequently fractious and 
bad slaves, which, when they cannot be reclaim- 
ed, are either put into jail, or into those depots 
which exist in all the large towns for the recep- 
tion of slaves who are sold, until they can be re- 
moved. All this is very well known to the slave- 
driver, one of whose associates goes annually 
to the Southwestern States, to make his con- 
tracts with those planters there who are in want 
of slaves for the next season. These fellows 
then scour the country to make purchases. 
Those who are bought out of jail are always 
put in fetters, as well as any of those whom 
they may suspect of an intention to escape. 
The women and grown-up girls are usually sold 
into the cotton-growing States, the men and 
the boys to the rice and sugar plantations. 
Persons with large capital are actively concern- 
ed in this trade, some of whom have amassed 
considerable fortunes. But occasionally these 
dealers in men are made to pay fearfully the 
penalty of their nefarious occupation. I was 
told that only two or three months before I 
passed this way a "gang" had surprised their 
conductors when off their guard, and had killed 
some of them with axes. 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



CHAPTER IX. 

Cause of some Confusion in the Designation of the AUe- 
ghaiy Ridges explained.— A Uuclc shooting Landlord.— 
Arrive at Abingdon.— Account of Saltville.— Geology of 
the Valley and surrounding Country.— Visit to King's 
Cove, a singular Basin in Clinch Mountain, the Resi- 
dence of an Outlaw.— His Account of the Panthers and 
Wild Cat Accoucheurs.— Strata of the Clinch Mountain. 

From New River the country rises to New- 
burn, a village situated upon a lofty and fertile 
table-land covered with rich grass and well wa- 
tered ; finer pastures I have never seen, nor a 
more promising-looking district for grazing. As 
-we advanced to the south-west, I found a great 
deal of confusion prevailing amongst the country 
people respecting the designation given to the 
principal ridges of this part of the country. That 
chain, which is called the Blue Ridge in the 
northeastern parts of Virginia, and which is the 
most advanced towards the Atlantic, is by many 
persons in this quarter called the Alleghany 
Ridge ; and a ridge which runs behind, or to the 
-west of this, is called the Blue Ridge. This has 
taken place from the want of a little elementary 
information in geology. 

The Blue Ridge is the most advanced towards 
the east of all the ridges of the great elevated 
Alleghany Belt, except a small subordinate and 
partial ridge, which in the central parts of Vir- 
ginia i-s cMeit SoiUk- Wed Mnuntain. The Blue 
Ridge, in fact, fronts the Atlantic, and may fair- 
ly claim to be called ibe Atlantic Primanj Chain, 
consisting, wherever it is seen, of a mixture of 
talcose, quartzose, hornblende, green altered 
epidotic rocks, ancient sandstones, and chlorite 
slates, exceedingly intersected with strong quartz 
veins; being also non-fossiliferous, it is, in the 
strictest sense of the word, and according to the 
received opinions of the most accredited Euro- 
pean geologists, to be classed among the primary 
Tocks, in the sense that these have preceded the 
formations contaiaingfossiliferous beds. On the 
other hand, the ridges which immediatelv suc- 
ceed to the west of "this Atlantic Primary Chain 
consist of fossiliferous beds and sedimentary 
rocks without exception, and undoubtedly belong 
to the formations which have hitherto been call- 
ed transition, and which Mr. Murchison has now 
included in his system of Silurian Rocks. The 
most remarkable'of these is that great watershed, 
which has been before noticed, called the Alle- 
ghany Mountain, or Ridge, which, although 
farther to the north it generally maintains a reg- 
ular distance from the Atlantic Primary Chain, 
Iiere seems to converE^e to the south, and towards 
the point where the Blue Ridge divides into two 
ridges, the westernmost taking the name of the 
Iron Mountain, and farther to the S.W. that 
of Unayl^ay, which is the Cherokee term for 
" white ;'' while the eastern one, pursuing its way 
to the S.S.W., forms the western boundary of 
Patrick County; the space contained between 
these two primary ridges being occupied by 
Grayson and Floyd counties. The country peo- 
ple, however, not adverting to the dilTerence be- 
tween the constituents ami age of the primary 
and sedimentary ridges, suppose the Alleghany 
Ridge to have crossed the Blue Ridge, and that 
the most eastern of the two primary ridges is its 
continuation; hence they call this last the Alle- 
ghany Ridge, and the western one the Blue 
Ridge: and this is not incorrect as far as it re- 
lates to its watershed character, for the eastern 
ridge does throw down some headwaters of the 
Kanawha to the west, and of the Roanoke to the 
east. 



Some of the limestone beds in the vicinity of 
Newburn are nearly horizontal, and contaia 
patches of chert of a blackish colour, of the same 
character as that which marics Black Rock in the J 
State of New York. Anthracite coal is found ia I 
most of the little valleys about here, at the foot !' 
of the ridges, conforming to the flexure of the 
strata. To our lett, about eight miles, at Aus- 
tinville, near to the Iron Mountain, there is a 
vein of galena in the limestone, which is worked 
with some success, and which runs, as I was 
informed, nearly north-east. We stopped at 
Wythe Court House, at the shabby, dirty tavern 
where the stage-coach puts up, and where they 
pretended to give us dinner; but everything was 
so filthy, it was impossible to eat. The landlord, 
a noisy, ill-dressed, officious fellow, was eternal- 
ly coming into the room with his mouth full of 
tobacco, plaguing us to eat his nasty pickles and 
trash along with the bread and milk we were 
contented to dine upon, and for which he charged 
us half a dollar each. 

This worthy was a perfect representative of 
that class of lazy, frov/zy, tobacco-chewing coun- 
try landlords who think nothing is right unless 
there is a good deal of dirt mixed up with it. 
Seated upon a chair, with his legs .sprawling 
upon two others, his great delight was to bask in 
the sun at the door of his tavern, and watch the 
approach of the stage-coach, or any other vehicle j 
or person that was upon the road. It was in this 
situation we found him, dressed in a pair of pre- 
posterously-fitting trowsers, covered with grease, 
a roundabout jacket to correspond, and a con- 
ceited, lantern-jawed, snuff-coloured visage, with 
an old, ragged straw hat stuck at the top of it. 
But he had one surprising talent. From his long 
practice of chewing large mouthfuls of tobacco, 
and the consequent necessity of ridding himself 
of the strong decoctions that, like a spring-tide, 
constantly threatened to break their bounds, he 
had gradually acquired the art of expectorating 
with such force and precision, that he could hit 
anything within a reasonable distance, and with 
a force before unknown to belong to that branch 
of projectiles. Mr. Jefferson's doctrines had one 
of their most able exponents in him, for, when 
he was hard pushed at an election, he sometimes 
gave his opponents just cause for seeing that he 
was the wrong man to contend with, by squirt- 
ing his opinions into their eyes — a mode'of argu- 
ment which, as he was a justice of peace into the 
bargain, caused him to be respected accordingly. 

We had an opportunity of seeing a curious 
specimen of this man's talents before we left the 
house, for, as we were preparing to get into the 
stage-coach, a flock of young ducklings, with an 
old one or two, came v/addling along with re- 
markably uncertain steps; the old ones advan- 
ced, looked, and hesitated, whilst the young ones 
hardly seemed to know which way they were , 
going: most of them seemed to be blind, and, in 
fact, had been partly deprived of sight ever since 
they had been able to waddle about; for as soon 
as they were hatched, the old duck bringing the 
little ones to pay their compliments to the land- 
lord on his three chairs, and to pick up what 
crumbs they might find, he, merely to keep up 
his practice, was in the habit of knocking the 
little ducklings over neck and heels whenever 
they came within shot, and so in process of time 
the" poor things had lost the use of their eyes. 
The old duck had perhaps been spared on ac- 
count of her maternal character ; but from what 
I saw of her motions, I rather think she had be- 



40 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



ctnne as expert at dodging as he was at knock- 
ing her young ones over. Ttiese details of this 
accomplishment of llie worthy landlord and jus- 
tice, I had afterward from the driver of the stage- 
coanj. 

From this place to Mount Airy we found the 
road very bad, and, arriving there late, stopped 
at an indiflerent-looking house, where, to our 
great surprise, we got a clean supper and single 
hed-rooms. Mount Airy is on one of the lofty 
parts of this table-land, which here throws down 
some of the headwaters of the Tennessee River; 
and as we advanced next day to the west, we 
found excellent pastures in every direction, and 
a very beautiful country; graceful knolls of 
limestone well wooded to the top, rich grazing- 
grounds, and a surprising fertility all around. 
The edges of the limestone strata, however, cross 
the road often, and make it very rough travel- 
ling. We passed many patches of red earth that 
bore a very luxuriant herbage: soils of this col- 
our appear to be derived from two sources, a 
red argillaceous rock, of which I have observed 
some isolated patches, and a red ferruginous 
sandstone, which last, on decomposing, makes 
rather a barren surface, probably from the too 
great abundance of ferruginous oxide. At the 
ford of the north fork of the Holston River — a 
tnain tributary of the Tennessee — there is a fine 
bottom land which is very productive, yielding 
eighty bushels of maize to the acre. This valu- 
able estate belongs to General Preston, father to 
the distinguished senator from South Carolina, 
Colonel Preston. It was late in the night before 
we arrived at Abingdon, a straggling village, 
which was originally built by the Scotch and 
Irish, who penetrated into these most distant 
parts of Virginia from Pennsylvania at an early 
period. These settlers had no blood connection 
with those English families of Eastern Virginia, 
or the Old Dominion, as the Virginians love to 
call it, who took possession of the country by 
the way of James River, but were a distinct 
people, equally remarkable for their enterprise. 
Most fortunately. General Preston and his fam- 
ily were at home, as well as Colonel Preston, 
the senator, and his lady, with both of whom I 
had the pleasure of being well acquainted. I 
was received in the most friendly manner by 
them all, and during my stay was indebted to 
them for the most obliging attentions. General 
Preston is a person of the highest respectability, 
and has always been distinguished for great en- 
ergy of character, without which no man, under 
the circumstances of the period when he first 
came here, would have advanced into so unset- 
tled a wilderness as this was. He is now a very 
opulent landholder, and can count one hundred 
and sixty-two descendants. 

The day after our arrival. Colonel Preston 
most obligingly sent a couple of blood mares for 
my son and myself, for an excursion we pro- 
posed lo make to his father's salt-works, sixteen 
mile> distant, of which I had heard a great deal. 

We crossed a ridge called Walker's Mountain 
— which we had had upon our right a great part 
of our journey — by a very low gap, and soon 
reached SaUvilln, the object of our excursion. 
This is a ragijed assemblage of wooden build- 
ing.- where the salt is manufactured, and is situ- 
ated in a small vale about a mile and a half 
long, and, perhaps, six hundred yards broad: it 
is evidently the site of an ancient lake; indeed, 
canoes were used when the white people first 
took possession of the place, and even now it is 



a low, flat, marshy bottom, imperfectly drained. 
After riding about and looking at the place, we 
rode to the Plaster Banks, a deep quarry exca- 
vation from whence they take the gypsum in 
blocks, which is sold on the spot at four dollars 
and a half per ton. At sunset we rode to ihe 
superintendent's, where we found Colonel Wil- 
iam King, one of the lessees, to whom we had 
very friendly letters, and by whom we were kind- 
ly received, and immediately made at home. 
The next day we devoted to a careful examina- 
tion of this interesting place under the guidance 
of Colonel King. 

The floor of this small vale is formed of a 
limestone, running E.N.E., apparently of the 
same period as that of the valley of Shenandoah, 
and is contained between lofty hummocks or 
hills of the same mineral, round and conical at 
the top. These hills present the appearance of 
having been once united by a continuous floor at 
a level of perhaps 200 feet higher than the pres- 
ent floor of the vale. The salt water was first 
discovered by its exuding from the hills of the 
eastern slope, near the old mansion-house once 
occupied by the Preston family; but wells hav- 
ing been subsequently sunk more towards the 
centre of the marsh, those old springs have ceased 
to flow. The wells have been dug 220 feet, 
through a deposit of clay and gypsum much mix- 
ed up with salt. In sinking their augurs through 
the mineral matter, they drop through into the 
water at a certain depth, and as they sometimes 
hear fragments of gypseous clay splash into it, it 
is evident there is a vast reservoir of salt water 
at the depth of 220 feet. In dry weather, and 
especially after long-continued drought, the wa- 
ter becomes excessively salt, yielding, as I was 
informed, one bushel of salt of 50 lbs. to 24 gal- 
lons of water; but in the rainy seasons the at- 
mospheric waters raise the wells, and make the 
brine weaker. The water from the well called 
the Preston Well is pumped up day and night, and 
permitted to run off unused, to make the water 
of another well, called the King Well, more pro- 
ductive; because, if the Preston Well, which is 
within eighty feet of the other, were not dischar- 
ged in this way, the water of the other well would 
be loo weak. And the necessity of doing this 
arises from the fact that a subterranean stream 
of fresh water runs into the Preston Well at a 
certain depth from the surface, and from thence 
has an oblique passage downwards into the King- 
Well, and thus reduces its strength. They are 
therefore obliged to pump, to keep down the lev- 
el of the waters of the Preston Well below the 
orifice by which they would otherwise mingle 
with the King Well. 

The pure beds of gypsum, or sulphate of lime, 
lie at the E.N.E. end of this vale, and the plas- 
ter is, as frequently occurs in other localities, 
capped by an incoherent sandstone. This gyp- 
sum may have been deposited by the same wa- 
ter, or by a mineral spring which has ceased to 
flow or escapes under ground ; a supposition 
strengthened by the fact that other extensive de- 
posits of gypsum are found to the N.E., in the 
valley between Walker's Mountain, and the 
ridge" called Clinch Mountain, where there are 
no salt springs. Springs containing sulphate 
of lime only may have been common in ancient 
geological periods; gypsum, however, is gener- 
ally found associated with salt, and this brine at 
the King Well is so highly loaded with sulphate 
of lime, that not only do immense numbers of 
small crystals of the sulphate come up with it. 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



41 



but when the kettles are examined after a week's 
boiling, their bottoms are always found "blocked 
up" as it is technically called, with layers of 
gypsum from each succeeding boiling, six or 
eight inches thick. 

This vale or basin was probably— after the ele- 
. vation of the land which shuts it in— a laks fed 
by saline and gypseous springs. The limestone 
is very cavernous, and it is not impossible that 
at some period the surrounding huuimocks may 
have been united with extensive caverns inter- 
vening into which the mineral waters rose. 
When the connection between these hummocks 
was destroyed, that portion of the lake where de- 
fjosits of gypsum were formed above the brine, 
would, in the course of time, be filled in with 
aluminous earth brought in by the adjacent 
streams, as in the case of the valley at the Sweet 
Springs, and thus a body of clay and gypsum 
would be formed, such as they now bore through 
into the salt water at this place. As additional 
evidence that this vale has once been an exten- 
sive lake, the same earthy and mineral deposits 
are found in the borings at the S.W. end. A kvf 
hundred yards west of the buildings at Saltville, 
and in the road leading to the Holston River, is a 
deposit of 150 feet of argillaceous matter, 50 feet 
of which consists of blue vertical slate, and 100 
feet of brown soft argillaceous schist; this last 
contains madrepores and producta, of which I 
procured some fine specimens, and runs a great 
distance through the country N.E. and S.W., 
being identical with what has hitherto been call- 
ed gray wa eke slate. 

From this vale, accompanied by one of our 
new friends, we set off on horseback to examine 
a place called King's Cove, of which a great deal 
had been said to me, and which is on the lofty 
ridge called Clinch Mountain. This ridge ap- 
pears to be a continuation to the S.W. of the Al- 
leghany ridge, near the White Sulphur, and holds 
a very straight course to the N.E. as far as the 
Kanawha River. The name of cove is given in 
this part of the country to any crater-like basin 
or vale of land entirely surrounded by lofty hills, 
and there are many such in these mountains. 
Some of them contain from 500 to 1000 acres of 
the most fertile soil. There is one called Burke's 
Garden farther to the north, up the Clinch ridge, 
which was described to me as a very extraordi- 
nary kind of amphitheatre, surrounded by a circle 
of lofty hills, and containing from 3000 to 4000 
acres of the most fertile land. The cove we 
went to see was difficult of access; after travel- 
ling about three miles up the ridge, we came 
suddenly upon it, and got into it by a difficult 
pass, just wide enough for one horse, where the 
mountain side sloped at an angle of about 65° 
among the loose sandstone rocks, which made it 
frequently necessary for us to dismount. On our 
right was a deep ravine which separated us from 
some lolly mural escarpments, at the top of 
which were strong ledges of naked sandstone 
hanging at an angle of about 55°. The scene 
was strikingly wild. 

Our guide was a very extraordinary character, 
quite without a rival, as I was told, in his line; 
and truly I never saw a greater oriaTinal, or met 
with a man that so precisely came up to my idea 
of a Yankee outlaw. He was known by the 
iiame of Charley Talbot, was a spare, snllow 
fellow, with eyes that glanced incessantly from 
one object to another, without resting more than 
an instant upon anything. If he was quite sure 
that the thing he was looking at was. not the 
F 



sherift"conie to arrest him, or a panther, or a rat- 
tlesnake, he immediately turned his attention to > 
sometiiingel^e; and although he was more thaa 
sixty years old, he was beyond all comparisoa 
the most active of our party. This cove was his 
den, where he lived, and from it, when danger 
was impending from officials, he could, in a quar- 
ter of an hour, be in any of the four coimties of 
Washington, Russel, Tazewell, or Wyihe, all of 
which happen to corner here "quite slick." 

As we had given Charley no noticeof our ap- 
proach, we took him by surprise on approaching 
his hut; and when he came to the door and saw 
us, Colonel King observed that he faltered, be- 
lieving us to be limbs of the law, the Sheriff of 
Washington County having made an unsuccess- 
ful attempt to bag him a few days before. Char- 
ley had attracted the public attention some time: 
as a panther-hunter, a wild-cat killer, a man that 
would drag a bear out of his den, bring down a 
deer, and that failing, kill the fat hogs or beeves 
of the settlers, his character was established. 
His merits, too, were acknowledged as a dabbler 
in literature, being with some reason suspected 
of keeping up an intimate connection with the 
dealers in counterfeit bank-notes, that seem to 
abound in every part of the United States. Be- 
ing obliged, therefore, to come occasionally into 
the world, Charley was provided with a grey stal- 
lion of great fleetness and bottom to go to Abing- 
don on a Sunday, when he was privileged from 
arrest, and upon these occasions he used to boast 
that his nag and himself cared nothing for Mon- 
day, because they knew every inch of the country 
as well by night as by day. 

As soon as our real object in visiting the cove 
was explained to him, he laid aside all appre- 
hension, and showed great alacrity in assisting 
us, and took us to various parts of the cove. 
Some maize of extraordinary dimensions was 
growing not far from his hut, on the fertile red 
soil, resembling that which I had frequently seen 
on my way to Abingdon, and on lifting up my 
glass I saw that the very summit of the mount- 
ain to the left was capped by red horizontal 
rocks, forming an escarpment. Upon my ex- 
pressing a desire to go there, Charley instantly 
offered to conduct me : leaving, therefore, my 
friends, who had been at the top of the mountain 
before, I put myself under his direction, listen- 
ing to the interesting stories he related about 
" varmint," as he called panthers, wild cats, and 
bears. 

According to his experience the "painter,"^ 
for so the country-people call the panther — is shy 
of the "human," whom he never attacks but 
when he is wounded or ravenously hungry. He 
is, however, easily taken by the hunter when he 
has dogs with him, for if the animal has not time 
to leap on a tree before the dogs close in upon 
him, the hunter despatches him with his rifle, 
whilst the dogs, as Charley said, "is raanagingr 
the varmint." But when the dogs are in full 
pursuit, and close at his heels, he springs at the 
first tree that suits him, generally selecting one 
whose lower branches are about twelve feetfrom 
the ground, knowing well that no animal he is 
upon bad terns with can perform the feat. The 
rifle soon puts an end to the presumptive thought 
thatjie is in safety. 

The pan ther (Fclis (liscolar) is the lion of A mer- 
ica, and bears a strong resemblance to the Afri- 
can lioness. Charley had killed a great many 
of them, and they were now becoming scarce in 
his cove: still he said there were four or five 



42 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



^arge ones that haunted it, and these came from 
the strong laurel thickets in Russel County, to 
%ratch a gap at the lop of the mountain, which 
■vvas the usual place by which the deer entered 
the cove from that direction. To this gap the 
panthers hie belbre day, stretch themselves at 
full length on a log to wait the approach of the 
■deer, and spring upon the neck of the animal as 
soon as it is within reach; whilst the whelp pan- 
V ..ther, if there is one, brings a fawn to the ground. 
X^'But," said Charley, "1 hates them 'ar cursed 
varmint, the cattermount, as some folks calls 
'em, a plaguey sight worser than the painters, 
and there's a pretty smart scatter of 'em in ihis 
cove, I tell you. The cursed critters do beat all 
;(br sneaking along seven or eight of 'em logither 
Avhen a sow's going to pig, and they'll git right 
close to her when she is gitting the pigs ; and 
•when she grunts at 'em, the blasts set up their 
hacks jist like a naytural cat, and one of 'em 
•will take one pig, and another of 'em will lay 
hold of another pig, and I swar, when she is 
done, she turns round and she ain't got ne'er a 
pig on the face of the arth. That's the way these 
<5«accoantable varmint has sarved my sows ever 
so many times, for I reckon they like the woods 
Jo pig in better than the stye." 

This animal, so fond of sucking pigs, is the 
spotted wild cat {Fclis ritfa?), and is universally 
complained of in this part of the country as de- 
structive to young pigs, for the sows are all per- 
mitted to run at large in the woods. 

After some exertion we scrambled up to the 
foot of the escarpment, and found that the red 
rocks consisted of argillaceo-calcareous beds, 
resting upon horizontal limestone, and that they 
were fast wearing away from the effects of the 
%veather, being of a soft laminated structure, like 
Ihe red rocks near Dawlish in Devonshire. 
Great portions of the cliff fall down after wet 
■weather to increase the rich soil beneath, and 
there the growth of trees, plants, and herbage is 
surprisingly luxuriant. When 1 had examined 
the rocks at this point, perceiving that it was 
possible to scramble along the head of the talus, 
which is formed by the crumbling escarpment 
for a very great portion of the distance round the 
cove, I expressed a desire to examine the beds 
i^rther to the S.W., so Charley most obligingly 
led the way, and soon got out of sight, for I was 
loitering along looking for rare plants, fossils, 
land-shells, or anything else in so interesting a 
place, and could no longer hear him pushing his 
■way through the bushes. There was a thicket 
to pass through which was very dense, on the 
right of which was the mural pile of argillaceo- 
oalcareous beds, which indeed, as Charley had 
well observed, "looked powerful curious;" be- 
fore I reached it, and whilst I was stopping to 
hammer away at some fossils, it came into my 
head that some of the " varmint" might be out 
looking for " spiciments," as my companion call- 
ed them, as well as myself; and I quickened 
jny steps a little, as fast as the nature of the soil 
would permit me to do, for it had rained that 
j-norning and was slippery : but faithful Char- 
ley was full of consideration for me, and I 
found him quietly waiting at no great distance. 
"Look here, stranger," said he, "here is the 
track of one of thern 'ar painters, and I reckon 
it is a considerable big bitch, for here's a whelp's 
track along with it." The impressions had been 
made before the rain fell, and the prints of the 
toes were somewhat deadened, but not at all ob- 
literated; the whelp's track was generally found 



following the other, and we traced thera both dis- 
tinctly for a great distance. It was evident they 
had been prowling just before day, ere the rain 
had fallen, and were going towards the deer gap. 

It was now 1 p.m., and Charley said it was 
the custom of the " painters," as no game was 
abroad, to retire at that hour into the laurel 
thickets on the west side of the Clinch Mount- 
ain in Russel County. I therefore inquired if it 
was possible to ascend the face of the rocks, get 
to the top of the mountain, and take a peep at 
the laurel thickets. Charley said he knew of a 
place where he thought he could get up, and 
that he was willing to lend me a hand too; "but 
I calculate, stranger," he added, "you ain't a- 
going to do no sich a Ibolish thing as to go into 
the laurels; why there ain't ne'er a sheriff in the 
four counties but what's got more sense than to 
walk into sich a fix." Having satisfied Charley 
on that score, he led the way to a part of the es- 
carpment that was practicable, clinging with his 
hands to points jutting from the rocks, and get- 
ling from one ledge to another. Two or three 
times he stopped to give me his advice and his 
hand, but I had been accustomed to climb worse 
passes, and got up without his assistance to the 
summit of the loftiest pinnacle of the Clinch; 
upon which Charley paid me the compliment ot 
saying, " Why if you arn't a most particular 
parson, then 1 don't know one, lor I swar you 
don't want no help at all !" But when I took out 
instruments to ascertain the course of the chain, 
the temperature, &c., Charley's admiration of 
me increased greatly; he clearly lost every ves- 
tige of apprehension that had lurked about him 
as to the real nature of our visit; showed Tne a 
place where he had a desperate fight with a 
panther, and the place where he had treed and 
shot him: after which he most willingly took 
me to a point on the flank of the mountain, from 
whence we had a view of a dark-looking dell 
thickly filled with laurels, and which appeared 
to he a most judicious abode for "painters." 

The view from the summit of this part of the 
Clinch Mountain is very extensive, by far the 
most ample I have yet seen from any of the Al- 
leghany ridges: to the south it was bounded by 
the Iron Mountain; but in every direction there 
was scarce anything to be seen but a succession 
of ridges covered with their eternal forests; few 
indications of man were to be observed, and, 
with the exception of some clearings, the scene 
presented very much the same appearance it 
would have done when the Indians had exclu- 
sive possession of the country. The thermome- 
ter was 8° of Fahr. lower at the summit than it 
was in the cove, and Charley said he had never 
seen any flies or other insects on the wing there 
in the hottest weather. The elevation was judged 
by me to be about 2400 feet above the level of 
the sea. 

In the horizontal limestone upon which the 
red argillaceous beds rest, I found orthocera, 
flustra, spirilers, producta, with other fossils ap- 
parently of the carboniferous limestone. The 
strata succeed each other as follows: — 

Red Aflgillacco- Calcareous beds, ) „•,„„.,! 
Limestone, with Fossils, i Horizontal. 

Quartzij.<ie SaTidstone. 
Limestone, inclined at an angle of 50°. 

If a good stone fence were laid across the ra- 
vine at the east end of the cove by which we en- 
tered it, and something done at the Deer Gap, 
the expense of which would not exceed — a.s 
Charley thought— 200 dollars, about 1200 acres 



TRAVELS IN AMEEICA. 



43 



of extremely fertile land would be so secured 
that nothing could get in or out of it, if the occu- 
pant thought proper. Exceedingly gratified by 
ihis excursion, which I believe terminated to the 
perfect satisfaction of Charley, we returned to 
Saltville to a late dinner by way of the north 
branch of the Holston, in which we saw great 
numbers of large soft-shelled turtle {Trionyz 
fcrox) from 12 to 20 inches long. In the even- 
ing I walked to the Holston and procured some 
fresh-water shells, several species of unio, as 
••.veil as that elegant univalve the Fusus jlwvialis 
of Say. The next morning, Sept. I2ih, we look 
,,leave of our hospitable friends Messrs. King 
and Lewis, and returned to Abingdon 



CHAPTER X. 

A pleasant Party in a Sta^e-coach— Arrive at Blountsville 
in ttie State of Tennessee— Fists versus Dirks and Pis- 
j tols — Kuoxville— Meet President Jackson. 

This morning, September the I2th, was occu- 
pied in packing up and taking leave of the Pres- 
ton family, ft)r whose kind attentions I felt under 
great obligations; and about two p.m. the stage- 
coach, in which I had secured and paid for our 
places to Blountsville in the State of Tennessee, 
■came to take us away. Whilst I was standing 
in the balcony of the hotel shaking hands with 
Colonel Preston and some gentlemen who had 
called to take leave, I observed a stout man 
about 30 years old ordering one of my trunks to 
be taken "off from the carriage, and to be left be- 
him; upon which I went down to the street, and 
believing him to be a contractor or agent for the 
stage, began to negotiate with him to pay for its 
weight rather than leave it; bin perceiving his 
language was a little equivocal, I asked him by 
what authority he interfered in the matter: upon 
-«'hich he avowed himself to be only a passenger, 
>but insisted that the trunk should be left, on the 
ground that the roads were bad, the stage was 
an old one, and that no passenger was allowed 
more than one trunk. Desirous as I was of 
avoiding a quarrel, I found myself obliged to 
carry matters with a very high hand with this 
officious person to silence him, and at last sent 
for the agent, who told the man that, having 
paid for two places, I had a right to have two 
trunks conveyed: the matter being thus decided 
in my favour, the trunk was replaced. Inside 
of the stage were two passengers from South 
Carolina, to which state they were going from 
Elountsville. One of these persons, a Dr. 
"W*****, grumbled a good deal about the trunk 
and the roads, but I told him as the agent had 
decided that my trunk was to go, I should con- 
sider it as a piece of personal impertinence ad- 
dressed to myself if anything more was said 
about it; upon which he had the good sense to 
make no more remarks. The other Carolinian 
said nothing. Beside-s these two and the puppy 
■who had ordered my trunk to be taken off, there 
was an exceedingly strange-looking white man, 
and a negro seated opposite to him ; but as the 
stage-coach only held six passengers, and there 
were already five in it on its arrival, it was evi- 
dent that either my son or myself would have to 
xide outside unless the negro was sent there. 

This man I ascertained was the servant of the 
■white man opposite to him, a queer tall animal 
about forty years old^ with dark black hair cut 
jround as if he were a Methodist preacher, im- 



mense black whiskers, a physiognomy not ?:-ith- 
out one or two tolerable features, but singularly 
sharp, and not a little piratical and repulsive; 
all this was set off with a huge broad-brimmed 
white hat, adorned with a black crape that 
covered it almost to the top of the crown. Hi«s 
clothes also were black, so that it was evident 
he intended people should see he was in mourn- 
ing. I civilly asked this sorrowful figure if he 
would let his servant ride on the top of the 
coach and permit my son to come inside, and 
his answer was, "I reckon my waiter is very 
well where he is." I told my son therefore to 
go to the top — where there was another black J 
fellow— and took care to say very deliberately ] 
and audibly, whilst I was holding the door of 
the stage-coach, that he would meet with some 
better company there than in the inside. I now 
took the sixth seat in this pleasant company, 
and there we were, all of us apparently as dis- 
trustful of what was to happen next, as if there 
had been a rattle-snake under one of the seats. 

It was my fortune to be seated opposite to the 
fellow who had given me so much trouble, so 
that our knees would necessarily interfere with 
each other if we were not mutually accommo- 
dating, as travellers usually are. This man 
would neither do one thing nor another; he 
seemed to put his legs in the way as much as he 
could, kept spitting out of the window, and then 
thrusting his head out of it; so that, being made ' 
exceedingly uncomfortable, I was compelled to 
ask him, though I did it in a civil way, to keep 
himself quiet; but I might as well have remain- 
ed silent, for, drawing himself up into a some- 
what fierce and sullen attitude, he growled out 
"that he had as good a right to be in the stage 
as me." Upon this the broken-hearted gentle- 
man under the black and white sombrero, who 
had drawn forth some voluminous sighs of a 
strong CipoUine character, affectionately put his 
hand upon this fellow's thigh, as though they 
were exceedingly intimate, which encouraged 
him to add "I reckon I ain't a-going to be pul 
upon by no man : if any man thinks he's a-going 
to put upon me, he will get no good by it — that 
I know." Having cheered himself on with this 
encouraging speech, he proceeded to take a dirk 
from beneath his waistcoat, which having ap- 
provingly looked at, he replaced; next he took 
a small pistol from his pocket and showed it to 
his melancholy friend, who observed that " leetel 
pitchers would carry water as well as big ones." 
The other passengers said nothing. In the 
Northern States such an occurrence as this, of 
five inside passengers combining against one 
who had offended none of them, could not have 
taken place. The very sight of the dirk and 
pistol would have incensed every one to kick 
the fellow out, but we were approaching coun- 
tries under the jurisdiction of the bowie-knife, 
and having learnt at Abingdon that while we 
were wrangling about the trunk they had ascer- 
tained from the waiter at the tavern that I was 
an Englishman— a circumstance not much in a 
traveller's favour when mixed up with low fel- 
lows of the uneducated classes in America— 1 
saw that my policy was not to get into disputes 
with them, "but to watch their proceedings. 

In this sort of humour we continued the re- 
mainder of the journey, and at nine p.m. reach- 
ed Blountsville, a small frontier town of the 
State of Tennessee. The night was damp, and 
we all went into the bar-room of the tavern, 
where a great many persons were standing 



44 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



round the fire. Here, after securing seats for 
the next day, I took my stand, happy to be re- 
leased from the disagreeable persons 1 had been 
shut up with, who, I was informed, were go- 
ing in another stage-coach to South Carolina. 
Whilst standing with my back to the fire look- 
ing at some young children who were a-musing 
themselves with blowing a horn, my old torment- 
or came up, and in an insolent manner tried to 
provoke me into a quarrel with him: for a long 
time I refused to speak to him, but perceiving at 
length that he was exciting a great prejudice 
against me, and becoming rather irritated, I told 
him that he might, for aught I knew, know a 
great deal, as he said he did; but that he didn't 
know the difference betwixt a gentleman and 
such a low, impudent jackanapes as himself; 
and that though I was his senior by a great many 
years, I thought it would be quite advisable for 
him not to provoke me any further. Upon this, 
without further circumlocution, and boiling over 
with inarticulate rage, he said "I allow you are 
a * — * old rascal, and that's just what you are." 

During all my journeys in North America I 
had never carried pistols, or dirk, or hidden weap- 
ons with me, or any arms but a rifle to procure 
myself game, and hitherto I had not found it ne- 
cessary to do so. I now saw that I had to do 
with a bully armed with a knife, and who was 
prepared to use it ; and who, seeing the advan- 
tage he had over me, and believing that he could 
say what he pleased with impunity in a crowd 
of fellows who were delighted to see an English- 
man insulted, felt quite sure that he might in- 
dulge in every sort of insolence with impunity. 
Great was the surprise therefore of the beholders 
when they saw me draw out a couple of instru- 
ments, the noble use of which was altogether un- 
known in the enlightened State of Tennessee. 
Near forty years before this memorable evening, 
I had in my young days been an eager pupil of 
the then celebrated pugilist Jackson ; and no 
sooner did the word rascal come strangely to my 
ears, than all the practice I had acquired under 
my great master suddenly and intuitively came 
to my ilnger's ends. It was literally Scarborough 
warning he got — a word and a blow; in an in- 
stant I served him upon his astonished optics 
with two " straightforwarders," right and left, 
and down he went on the floor into an ocean of 
tobacco spit, quite puzzled to imagine how he 
had got there. Perceiving, however, that he 
began to fumble for his dirk and pistols, I in- 
stantly jumped upon him, whereupon the land- 
lord jumped upon me, and my son upon the land- 
lord. We had a few moments of very interest- 
ing scuffle and coni'usion, but being' at length 
separated, the fallen bully was lifted up with his 
eyes and cheeks puffed up like a muffle, crest- 
fallen, and an object of pity even to myself 
Nothing more was said now about pistols or 
dirks, and I had the satisfaction of seeing this 
foolish fellow, who thought I should be content 
with telling him back again, according to the 
manners of his equals, that he was a rascal too, 
led off", almost frightened out of his senses lest 
he had lost his eyes, vapouring, however, as he 
went what he would do; for which I had only 
one answer, that I would give him ten times as 
much if he did anything at all. 

From this moment 1 was treated with great det 
erence as far as coming into contact with me 
went, for when I approached the fire every body 
retired a little to make room for me. To give 
them an idea that I attached no sort of impor- 



tance to what had taken piace, I began to eon- 
verse quietly with some of the bystanders about 
the country, and whilst doing this, the poor devil 
was brought in from the kitchen, by his whisk- 
ered friend and some otheis, with his head 
bound up, and accompanied by them went out 
of the door, but whether to the doctor's or the 
magistrate's remained to be seen. I now told my 
son in French to be upon the watch and to bring 
me information of what was going on. In the 
mean time the Dr. W*****, of South Carolina, 
whose conduct had not prejudiced me in his fa- 
vour, having found out who I was, came in a 
very friendly manner to my son and myself, ex- 
plained his behaviour, and secretly told us that 
I ought to be on my guard, as it was very proba- 
ble an attempt would be made to injure me. I 
was not particularly afraid of this : what I was 
really afraid of was that they would attempt to 
hold me to bail in a large sum. I was quite 
sure of my man. He would not neglect such a 
favourable opportunity of turning his eyes to ac- 
count, and I should have been too happy to have 
compromised the affair by immediately paying 
one hundred dollars for each of my offending 
fists. But the parties returned to the tavern evi- 
dently disappointed: they had, it seems, been to 
consult some limbs of the law who resided in the 
place, but, most fortunately for me, every crea- 
ture that could assist them in the legal way was 
gone to a court at some distance. Supper now 
was announced, and we went to it grave enough ; 
not a word was said. The landlord, the land- 
lady, the travellers, the drivers, and the negroes, 
first stared at the wounded hero, who was affec- 
tionately fed by his black-haired, piratical-*ok- 
ing friend, and then at me. I have not the reest 
doubt that all agreed in considering me as the 
greatest monster that had yet penetrated into 
Tennessee.* 

I was the first that retired from the supper- 
room, and iuimediately proceeded to my old 
place at the fireside of the bar-room. As soo^|^-< 
as they had all re-assembled there, I addressed*^ 
the landlord and the company, stating that it was 
the practice of gentlemen always to apologize 
when they were provoked to use violence; that 
I therelbre apologized to him and to them all; 
but that as I had been called a rascal for the 
first time in my life, and that by a man much 
younger than myself, who had taken great pains 
to quarrel with me, it was very natural in me to 
chastise him on the spot, as t dared to say any- 
one of them would have been manly enough to 
have done upon a lilfe occasion: that I really 
was sorry for what I had done, but that I was 
quite sure I should do the same thing over again 
if I was insulted in the same way. 1 next went 
up to the man himself, and told him, in a friendly 
tone, that I was exceedingly distressed to see 
that he was so very much bruised, that I wished 
it had not been done, and would most willingly 
undo it if it were in my power; but that he must 
be sensible that he had made me very angry, and 
that most men when angry took some revenge or 
other, and my wav of revenging myself was 
much better than using dirks or pistols, which 
either killed or injured people for life: that he 
would soon get well, and would then be no worse 



* T If-iriit ;iltri-\v:iri1? llnl thfi affair had reached the ears 
ofmv liicii'i^ III AIiiii'mIwii, \vi!li a sli^'ht chanije in some of 
the ii;irlirnl;iis : rlic Imil- lisliman was represpnted as having- 
struck at a pean-ablo American i^entleman with a dirl<, then 
knocked him down with the bntc end of a pistol, concluding 
the assault by lumping u on him to gouge him. 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



45 



for the blows I had ?iven him, and ihat I hoped 
he would do as Englishmen did, forgel and for- 
give, especi.illy as 1 was very sorry lo see hini 
so much hurt, and was ready to compensate him. 

This fellow was not so bad but that he had 
some good feeling in him; perhaps, too, there 
M'as a little unction in the word "compensation," 
for he no sooner heard it than he blubbered out, 
*'{ didn't mean to say that you ain't a gentle- 
jnan, and I am quite willing to be friendly:" 
adding that his name was G*****, and that he 
■was from Tuscaloosa, in the State of Alabama. 
Whereupon we shook hands and retired to our 
rooms. Being relieved from my apprehensions 
of having to deal with Tennessee lawyers, I went 
to bed and got a capital night's rest. This man 
Avas a singular compound of pomposity and ig- 
norance, boiling over with conceit of himself 
until this incident occurred, which I have no 
doubt was an excellent lesson for him. 

On coming down at one a.m. into the bar- 
room, I was surprised to learn, contrary to my 
expectation, that he, with his whiskered friend, 
■was to proceed on in the stage-coach with us, 
having been before given to understand that he 
was to leave us here, which the two South Caro- 
linians did. When he made his apperance, I 
was not a little shocked to see how horribly his 
face was disfigured, and felt great remorse for 
the blows 1 had given him. On getting into the 
stage-coach — there being now room for my son 
— matters after daylight took a surprising change. 
I was treated with the greatest respect, especially 
by my black-eyed friend; and whenever I lifted 
up Ay mauleys, even for the most innocent pur- 
poses, the gentleman in mourning used to ob- 
serve them very curiously, as though he was not 
quite satisfied as to the part they were going to 
perform. We, however, contrived to be on 
friendly terms ; and all danger of quarrelling, at 
any rate, seemed to be at an end. It was day- 
light when we arrived at a place called King's 
Port, on the Holston, which is here a pretty 
stream, navigable for boats. I obtained some 
fine unios during the short tirlie we stopped; and 
observed a great many concamerated shells in 
the limestone beds on the road-side, especially 
orthocera of a large size, but too firmly imbedded 
to he taken out without much preparation. We 
had the Iron Mountains on our left, extending 
S.W. to Georgia; and passed through an undu- 
lating country, not very fertile, with limestone 
hummocks, poor log-hutsy inhabited by a rude 
people, and all the signs of an unproductive 
country. 

Rogersville, twenty-five .miles farther west, 
has a few brick houses ; and the land about there 
is generally formed of hummocks of limestone, 
dipping S^S.E. about 45°. The ridges at this 
place behind the settlement are constituted of 
slate, apparently contemporaneous with that 
which underlies the Sweet Springs Valley. I 
took aiteep at the dinner-table here, where there 
was ai™id woman smoking a bad pipe, my trav- 
elling companions, and the driver; before them 
was a nasty-looking dish, with quantities of 
coarse onions; but everything looked so disgust- 
ing and filthy, that I could not make up my mind 
to sit down, and preferred to go without any din- 
ner. Here a great many sympathising inquiries 
T/ere made respecting the reasons which had 
compelled the Tuscaloosan to wrap up his head 
so curiously, and he gave the old tobacco-pipe 
lady a piteous account of the stage being run 
away with, and how he had been thrown against 



a tree. Unfortunately the driver, who knew the 
truth, took this as a reflection upon the stage- 
driving fraternity, and not only related the true 
story before he came away, but gave it as his 
opinion that "he was a poor etarnal scamp, and 
that that 'ar Englishman had given him a most 
almighty hiding that he hoped would last him 
till the lost kayws (cows) would come hum." 
The truth is that the poor devil was a pretty bad 
fellow at bottom, had a wonderful fertility of in- 
vention, which enabled him to tell the most ex- 
traordinary lies to inquirers about his accident, 
and was so totally insensible to his disgrace, that 
when he was in the stage he soon got up his 
spirits, and conducted himself as if nothing had 
happened to him. 

We took various passengers in whilst on the 
road for short distances, and for each of them he 
had almost a different story: hut it was of no 
avail ; the first driver from Blountsville had spoil- 
ed all his inventions by telling the truth, and 
speaking of him with the greatest contempt. 
When we had made seventy miles from Blounts- 
ville, we stopped to get a little rest at a place 
called Williams's, two miles from Bean's Sta- 
tion. Here the Tuscaloosan and his whiskered 
friend got into the same bed together. The next 
morning we drove twenty miles to a house kept 
by a Mr. and Mrs. Shields, two well-behaved 
people, who gave us a clean comfortable break- 
fast, during which a musical-box, enclosed in a 
large case with a sounding-board, was playing 
most delightfully. In an adjoining room was 
laid his brother, who had got a concussion of the 
brain a week before, in escaping from the stage- 
coach whilst the horses were running away with 
it in a narrow road in the woods. He was get- 
ting a little better, after remaining three days in- 
sensible, but was still delirious at times. 

About noon we reached Knoxville, a poor 
neglected-looking place, which notwithstanding 
makes a great figure on the map. I saw some 
tolerable dwelling-houses, and called upon a 
gentleman of the name of Campbell, to whom I 
had a letter, and who was very polite to me ; but 
we only stayed an hour, just long enough to let 
the passengers dine at the tavern. I also called 
upon a very worthy and well-known gentleman 
with whom I had the pleasure of beins; acquaint- 
ed. Judge Hugh White, a senator of the United 
States, who resides here ; but he was from home. 
There is steam-boat navigation from Knoxville 
down the Holston and Tennessee into the Mis- 
sissippi when the water is high enough ; but, to 
judge from the inactivity of the place, there is 
very little commerce going on. Fourteen miles 
farther we came to Campbell's Station, a place 
where the white settlers used to assemble, after 
they had first penetrated into these remote parts, 
to chastise the Indians. As we drove up to the 
door of the tavern, I saw General Jackson, the 
venerable President of the United States, seated 
at a window smoking his long pipe, and went 
to pay my respects to him, apologising for my 
dirty appearance, which I told him I had very 
honestly come by in hammering the rocks of his 
own State. He laughed and shook hands cor- 
dially with me; and learning that my son was 
with me, requested me to bring him in and pre- 
sent him. My son, who had been scampering 
about the country all the time we were in Knox- 
ville, was in a worse pickle than myself, and 
felt quite ashamed to be presented to so eminent 
a person; but the old General very kindly took 
him by the hand, and said, " My young friend, 



46 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA, 



don't be ashamed of this : if you were a politi- 
cian, you would have dirty work upon your 
hands you could not so easily get rid of." We 
had a very agreeable chat with the old gentle- 
man ; he was in fine spirits ; and we left his cheer- 
ful conversation with great reluctance, amidst 
the kindest expression of his wishes for our wel- 
fare, and an injunction to call upon him at Wash- 
ington as soon as we returned. The President 
was then on his way to the seat of government. 



CHAPTER XI. 

A Negro-Driver in mourning for a great Patriot— Irrever- 
ence of a Negro to a White Man's Ghost— Bivouac of a 
Gang of chained Slaves— An agreeable and lively fellow- 
passenger— Cross the Cumberland Mountains — Arrive at 
Sparta— A Driver killed— Hickory Valley— Mounds and 
Graves of the Indians that formerly dv»elt here — Imagin- 
ary pigmy race. 

On resuming our places in the stage-coach, our 
companion in black pronounced a most decided 
eulogium upon Gineral Jackson, but in such lan- 
guage as was quite inimitable. With a strange 
solemnity of tone and manner, he said, "The old 
Gineral is the most greatest and most completest 
idear of a man what had ever lived. I don't 
mean to say nothing agin Washington— he was 
a man too ; but Jackson is a man, I tell you : and 
when I see'd him in his old white hat, with the 
mourning crape on it, it made me feel a kind of 
particular curious." This mysterious sympa- 
thy betwixt the two white hats in mourning 
opened a vein of sentiment in our companion 
that presently took a very sublimated form, and 
he commenced thinking aloud as it were, keep- 
ing his right hand pressed on the thigh of the 
Tuscaloosan. He now attempted to cover a far- 
rago of bad grammar with an affected pronunci- 
ation of his words: and at last got into such a 
strain of talking fine, that my son and myself had 
great diflicuity in suppressing our laughter. He 
spoke of a niece that he had. and said, in quite 
a staccato style, "She — is — a — rnost — complete 
— " and there he rather equivocally left the mat- 
ter, adcling, however, that he had given her "a 
most beautiful barouche," and that he expected 
to overtake her that night. By and by, he said 
he expected to overtake another barouche which 
belonged to him ; and then told us what the two 
barouches had cost him. In short, he so thor- 
oughlv mystified us, that we could not make out 
what stratum in society he belonged to. If it 
had not been for these barouches, we might have 
conjectured, but they threw us out. We knew 
we had no barouches on the road, and were dis- 
posed to respect any one who had, for a barouche 
is a barouche always; and what must a man be 
who has two on the road, and " a complete" in 
one of them 1 

A vay:ue idea had once or twice crossed my 
mind that I had seen this man before, but where 
I could not imagine. On coming, however, to 
a long hill, where I got out to walk, I took occa- 
sion to ask the driver if he knew who the pas- 
sencer was who had two barouches on belbre. 
"Why," said the 7nan, "don't you know it's 
Armfield, the negur-driver'?" "Negur-driver!" 
thought I, and immediately the mystery was 
cleared up. 1 remembered the white hat, the 
crape, the black, short-cut, round hair, and the 
barouches. It was one of the identical slave- 
dealers I had seen on the Gth of September, cross- 
ing his gang of chained slaves over New River. 
On re-entering the vehicle I looked steadily at 



the fellow, and recollecting him, found no longer 
any difficulty in accounting for such a compound 
of everything vulgar and revolting, and totally 
without education. I had now a key both to his 
manners and the expression of his countenance, 
both of thetn formed in those dens of oppression 
and despair, the negro prisons, and both of them 
indicating his abominable vocation. 

As he had endeavoured to impose himself upon 
us lor a respectable man, I was determined to let 
him know before we parted that I had found him 
out; but being desirous first of discovering what 
was the source of that sympathy which united his 
hat with that of General Jackson, I asked him 
plump who he was in mourning for. Upon this, 
drawing his physiognoniy down to the length ot 
a moderate horse's face, "Marcus Layfeeyate" 
(Marquis Lafayette) was his answer. " Do you 
mean General Lafayette 1"* 1 inquired. " I 
reckon that's what I mean," said he. " Why, 
General Lafayette," I replied, "gloried in ma- 
king all men free, without respect of colour; and 
what are you, who I understand are a negro-dri- 
ver, in mourning for him for! Such men a.s 
you ought to go into mourning only when the 
price of black men falls. 1 remember seeing you 
cross your gang in chains at New River ; and I 
shouldn't be at all surprised if Lafayette's ghost 
was to set every one of your negroes free one of 
these nights." 

The fellow did not expect this, and was silent, 
but my son burst into a violent fit of laughter; 
and, to add to our amusement, the negur-driver's 
black man — who had been vastly tickled with, 
the idea of the ghost coming to help the neajirs 
— boiled over into a moststentorious horse-laugh, 
of the African kind. His enraged master now 
broke out, " What onder arth is the matter with, 
you, I reckon"? If you think I'll stand my wait- 
er's sniggering at me arter that fashion,'! reck- 
on you'll coine to a nonplush to-ni^ht." These 
awful words, which Pompey knew imported very 
serious consequences, brought him immediately 
into a graver mood, and he very contritely said, 
" Master, I warn't ^ laifing at you, by no man- 
ner of means; I was just a larfing at what dat ar 
gemmelman said about de ghose." Soon after 
this the fellow pretended he was taken ill, and 
determined to stop at a tavern on the road, a few 
miles from Bean's Station. He accordingly told 
Pompey to go on with the stage-coach until he 
overtook the gang, and then to return for him 
with one of the barouches. 

Here we left him tO digest our contempt as 
well as be could. Pompey now told us a great 
many things that served to confiim my abhor- 
rence of this brutal land-trafllic in slaves. As to 
his master, he said he really thought he was ill: 
"Master's mighty fond of ingeons," said he, 
"and de doctors in Alexandria tells him not to 
eat sich lots of ingeons ; but when he sees 'em 
he can't stand it, and den he eats 'em, and dey 
makes him sick, and den he carries on i^t like 
a house a fire; and den he drinks branofftipon 
'em, and dat makes him better; and den he eats 
ingeons agin, and so he keeps a carrying on." 
From which it would appear that the sum total 
of enjoyment of a negro-driver, purchased at 
such a profligate expense of humanity, is an un- 
limited indulgence in onions and brandy. 

Before we stopped for the night, but long after 
sunset, we came to a place where numerous 



* He died in the enrly part of the summer, and many of 
his friends in the United States were in mourning on the 
occasion. 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



17 



fires were gleaming through the forest: it was 
the bivouac of the gang. Having prevailed upon 
the driver to wait lialf an hour, I went wiih Pom- 
pey — who was to take leave of us here — into the 
woods, where they were all encamped. There 
were a great many blazingfires around, at wliich 
the female slaves were warming themselves; the 
children were asleep in some tenis: and the 
males, in chains, were lying on the ground, in 
groups of about a dozen each. The white men, 
who were the partners of Pompey's master, were 
standing about with whips in their hands; and 
"the co'mplete" was, I suppose, in her tent; for 
'I judged, from the attendants being busy in pack 
ing the utensils away, that ihey had taken iheir 
evening's repast. It was a fearful and irritating 
spectacle, and I could not bear long to look at it. 

Our company, on my return to the stage-coach, 
was reduced to ourselves and the now humble 
Tuscaloosan. We were kind to him, lest the 
poor devil should feel unnecessarily uncomfort- 
able. After a rough ride in the dark over an 
execrable road, we came to a poor miserable 
house where the sheriff lived, and where we 
were told we might lie down until four a.m. 
But such beds ! We were charged 12^ cents, or 
6d. each, for the privilege of lying down upon 
them, whilst we should have been most happy 
to have given ten limes as much for clean ones. 
But as the great study here appears to be to spare 
themselves trouble and exertion, they content 
themselves with putting a pack of dirty rags to- 
gether, calling it a bed, and then leave it in the 
same state throughout the year. A better spe- 
cimen of "cheap and nasty" could not easily be 
found. In the morning we started again at day- 
light, and reached the junction of the Clinch and 
Holston where tliey form the Tennessee, at a 
poor place called Kingston. The country now 
began to teem with graves and mounds of the 
Indians who once possessed the country, and to 
become very interesting. 

Early in the morning a passenger joined us, 
who turned out to be a very agreeable and di- 
verting person. I saw at once he was not an 
American; for, although he had a sallow lace, 
it was round, and his nose and a certain expres- 
sion of his countenance, added to the native po- 
liteness of his manners, marked him fora French- 
man. We conversed some time in English, 
which he spoke tolerably well; he had been on 
the Mississippi River, 'and knew most of the 
towns there familiarly. In the course of our 
conversation I happened to mention the village 
of St. Genevieve, and giving it the French pro- 
nunciation, he broke out, "Ah, Monsieur, je 
vois bien que voiis jiarlez Frangais — je parle 
Ang:lais moi comme un animal, je le sais bien — 
parlous Fran(,ais s'il vous plait." From this 
moment we talked nothing but French, except 
when our lively companion addressed the Tus- 
caloosan, who, having removed the handkerchief 
from his head, exhibited his black eyes in full 
relief His odd appearance greatly attracted tlie 
Frenchman's attention, who, in a very sympa- 
thetic tone, inquired as to the cause of it. We 
had now the old story of the stage being upset. 
and Monsieur fully believing he had been in- 
jured in that way, could scarce contain himself, 
exclaiming, "DeAmericain drivaire in de South- 
ern State is an infamious animal!" and then 
proceeded in the most voluble manner to tell us 
of some narrow escapes he had had with drunk- 
en drivers. It appeared to me that there was 
not a place in the Southern and Western States 



where this Frenchman had not been; 1 had only 
to look at the map and mention a place, whea^ 
he would say, "Monsieur, je eonnais cet endroil;' 
la parlaitement ; il y a un tel qui demeure la el;' 
un tel." And to my inquiries he woukl answer, 
" Oui, Monsieur, il y a bien de montagnes, mais 
pas comme celle du Cumberland, que vous allez. 
traverser." Or else it would be, " Non, ce pays, 
la est plat comme ma main." 

After a few hours of this sort of conversation, 
I perhaps felt as curious to know what his pur- 
suits could be that had led him to so many pla- 
ces where he knew so many people, as he was 
to know mine who made so many mquiries about 
the surface of the country. Apparently his cu- 
riosity was more lively than mine, for he made 
many attempts, though always with politeness, 
to penetrate my secret, and once or twice went 
rather far on the road towards finding out who I 
was. At last, without telling him my name, I 
informed him that I was an Englishman, and 
that my pursuits were purely confined to geology 
and natural history. He was delighted with this 
mark of confidence, and said, "Monsieui', je ne 
connois pas les sciences, mais je les honore ; et 
je suisbien aise de rencontrer un brave Anglais, 
car je les estime tous de tout mon coeur." He 
now proceeded to tell me who he was and what 
he was, and what sort of a person his wife was, 
how long he had been married to her, and what 
age she was when she became his wife. "Oui, 
Monsieur," said he, "c'etoit une jeune personne 
charmante, pleine de bonte, et je puis dire que 
je I'aime de tout mon coeur." His name was 
Nidelet, he was a silk merchant of Philadelphia, 
had married a daughter of a respectable French 
negociant, a Monsieur Pratte,of the town of St. 
Louis, on the Mississippi, and was at this time 
engaged, as he had often before been, in collect- 
ing debts due to his house, which accounted for 
his accurate knowledge of the country. In the' 
course of the day the driver, it appeared, told 
him how the Tuscaloosan had got his black eyes, 
which had exceedingly sharpened his curiosity 
to know who I was; and on coming to a hill he 
joined my son, who was walking up it, and con- 
trived very ingeniously to get it^out of him. Oa 
re-entering the stage-coach, therefore, he trium- 
phantly exclaimed, "Ah, ah, Monsieur! vous 
etes done Monsieur F. : j'ai bien entendu parler 
de vous k Philadelphie, et je suis enchante de 
I'honneur de voire connaissance. C'est vous 
done qui avez flanque a ce coquin ces gros yeur 
— il les a bien merite. Diable, c'est un art su- 
perbe que celui de boxer! J'ai pris quelques 
lecons moi-meme, mais n'importe — je vovage 
toujours avec des pistolets et un dirk— tenezt 
regardez! Vraiment vous lui avez arrange sou 
sacre museau joliment. Peste, comme il est 
beau. 11 parait 6tre votre ami a present — ne 
vous fiez pas; il est capable de trouver son mo- 
ment et vous planter son dirk. Le coquin, j'art- 
rai un ceil sur lui — si jamais il fait le moindre 
mouvement, je lui regale un coup de pistolet an 
museau." The poor devil who was the object, 
of this rhapsody saw, by the excited looks and, 
gestures of the Frenchman, that he was blown, 
and at the next hill took his seat with the driver, 
and never came into the stage again, so that we 
had nothing more to do with hira. 

We commenced the ascent of Walden's Ridge 
to-dav, which is on the east flank of Cumber- 
land Mountain, and is separated from the west- 
ern flank by a depression or valley. Proceedings 
along a disintegrating sandstone, we came to a. 



48 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



place called the Crab Orchard, from ihe first 
\\'hiie pioneers finding crab apple-trees {MUi'S 
__coronaria) here. A few miles hence tiie niuiint- 
ain descends again rapidly to a beautiful cir- 
cular cove, containing', perhaps, one tlmusnnd 
acres. This is a singularly romantic and ple;is- 
ing vale, perfectly round, and surrounded by a 
moLintainous country, the hills, as well as the 
vale, being in every part covered with graceful 
and stately trees. The Cumberland Mountain, 
taken altogether, is, where we passed it on the 
Avay to Sparta, a sort of table-land about forty 
miles broad, with occasional depressions in it. 
Indications present themselves here of rocks of 
a later period than those of the Alleghany Ridge ; 
ihe limestone in the valleys is all horizontal, and 
on each flank of the hills the same strata of 
sandstone crop out as we ascend and descend 
them. The fossils on the flat tabular limestone, 
which consist principally of producta, spirifers, 
and flustra, increase greatly in numbers, but do 
not vary much, apparently, in genera, from those 
in the inclined rocks we have so long been trav- 
ersing. The descent to Sparta is rugged for one 
mile and a half over the mineral beds, and on 
reaching the foot of the mountain I observed a 
change in the botany of the country, as well as 
in the rocks. The flint in the limestone beds 
here takes an agatized form, and often assumes 
a beautiful boytroidal chalcedonic appearance. 

Soon after we had got upon the level land, we 
met a stage-coach from the west with a passen- 
ger severely cut in the face. He informed us 
that in the morning the driver had fallen asleep 
on his seat, and dropping from it upon the ground, 
the wheels had gone over his head and killed 
him on the spot, upon which the horses galloped 
off", and at a turn of the road ran the vehicle 
against a stump, and broke the stage to pieces : 
he was thrown against some trees, and narrowly 
escaped with his life. These accidents fre- 
quently happen, for, with few exceptions, the 
drivers are a reckless, unmanageable race of 
fellows, that drink hard, and care nothing even 
what happens to themselves. All the particu- 
lars of this sad story were eagerly listened to by 
the Tuscaloosan, whom we discovered after- 
wards to have represented himself as one of the 
injured passengers upon that occasion. It was 
late at night before we reached Sparta. 

Sparta is a very small place, not exactly upon 
a Lacedsemonian plan, perhaps, but at any rate 
it has a small square and a court-house. As to 
the rest, the houses were miserably shabby, as 
well as the stores. Here I determined to remain 
a short time, as the country was very interesting, 
and I found obliging and nice people at the tav- 
ern. The next morning after breakfast I re- 
turned to the Cumberland Mountain to secure 
some fossils I had seen, and to get a vievv of the 
country from the summit. From the west brow 
of the mountain a bold ledge of horizontal sand- 
stone rocks projects from a great distance, form- 
ing a natural stone terrace, from whence there 
is a most extensive view of the country; which, 
with the exception of a few patches of cleared 
ground, is an unreclaimed wilderness. There 
is a small vein of bituminous coal not very far 
off", with two strong chalybeate spiings. 

On the 17th we sallied out on foot to a place 
called Hickory Valley, where there were said to 
be a great many coves and little vales. I had 
heard of Indian graves of a peculiar kind that 
were found here, and was desirous of inspecting 
them. After an agreeable walk we reached the 



viilley, an' 



1 ii a Very pleasing place, with 
line spiings, game in .■ibiuiilancc, Hint ui the 
limestone stiaia occuirini,' as the chalk-flints do 
in Europe, and everyilimi^ appropriate lijr the 
permanent residence of a irihe of Indians. Mr. 
Turner Lane, an old resilient here, to whose 
plantation we went, informed us that when the 
stumps of trees in his clearings became suffi- 
ciently decayed to permit them lo plough their 
fields thoroughly, the coulters frequently lore up 
square blocks of limestone and human bones. 
This took place so often, that ai last their curi- 
osity was excited, and they perceived that these 
blocks were parts of stone coffins, consisting of 
a bottom-piece laid flat on the ground, two side 
pieces, a foot and head-piece, and a lid laid on 
the top. 

The extreme length of these graves was 24 
inches, some of them were only 15 inches long, 
and others even less, and the coflins were sunk 
not more than a foot in the ground. It had 
struck him and other persons as a curious fact, 
that amidst so great a number of graves there 
should not be one longer than 24 inches, and he 
determined, therefore, in concert with a Mr. 
Doyle — a neighbour of his who inhabited an- 
other cove about four miles from his residence 
— to examine into the matter with great care. 
They accordingly opened some graves, and first 
removed the stones before they disturbed the 
contents of the coffins, v/hich were filled appa- 
rently with nothing but the common soil of the 
country. Having removed this carefully with 
their knives, they found that each grave con- 
tained a skeleton^ supported by a sufficient quan- 
tity of earth to prevent the bones falling into a 
heap. The skeletons were uniformly laid on the 
right side, and drawn up somewhat as people 
sleep, the right side reposing on the right arm. 
Under the neck they uniformly found an earthen 
Indian pot, formed (as I afterwards found) of 
clay and fragments of the unio, which, being 
saturated with moisture, generally fell to pieces, 
but when carefully taken out and dried, would 
become hard again. Mr. Lane and his friends 
werp i. , A' convinced — as they still are — that they 
h iscovered an ancient race of pigmies that 
had oeen buried in this valley before the exist- 
ing forest had grown up; and the story setting 
out, some country doctors and curious people 
came to the place, and finding the dentification 
of the jaws perfect, and the sutures of tlie cra- 
nia complete, they pronounced the skulls and 
bones to have belonged, not to children of the 
ordinary Indian race, but to adults of a pigmy 
race. A book was next written about it, and 
it became one of the wonders of the western 
coimtry. 

Having heard Mr. Lane's account of the af- 
fair, we walked over to see Mr. Doyle, and hear 
what he had to say. 

On our way we stopped to examine some an- 
cient mounds almost obliterated by time, with 
very old forest trees growing upon them. V^^e 
fbimd Mr. Doyle at home, living very comfort- 
ably in his beaulil'ul cove, where he had cleared 
about one hundred and fifty acres of land. He 
gave us precise! V the same information we had 
received from Mr. Lane, only observing that the 
graves were much more numerous on his farm, 
and that he had been the first person to suppose 
them filled by a pigmy race. He said he had 
opened at least one hundred of them, and that 
they resembled each other in everything, save 
that in the shortest of them the bones were ex- 



TRAVELS IN AMEEICA. 



49 



tremel}' decayed, and the skulls contained no 
teeth ; whence he inferred that these were the 
graves of pigmy children. I now examined sev- 
eral of the coffins he had opened, and measured 
them, and found that there was not one of them 
longer than 24 inches, or deeper than 9. Hav- 
ing seen these 1 proceeded, with his permission, 
to open one of the graves myself that had been 
untouched. The skeleton was there, with an ex- 
tremely thin cranium without teeth : the bones 
were suprisingly small, and it was evident the 
body had been laid on its right side, and packed 
in earth. A small pot was under the neck which 
, crumbled to pieces on being touched, and I found 
a rib of a deer with a snail shell, that had also 
been put into the grave. In most of these coffins 
Mr. Doyle had found some shells, and some 
small perforated stones, which had probably been 
used for a collar to put round the child's neck. 
On going to Mr. Doyle's house he presented me 
•with some of the shells found in them, which 
were Fusus fiuvialis, a univalve, found in the 
neighbouring Holston. Whilst rambling about 
we came to a very strong ledge of sandstone 
rocks which had a sort of cavern beneath them: 
on looking into it we saw the bones of another 
skeleton, and contrived to get the cranium out ; 
it was full of teeth, and had a hole in it which it 
was evident enough had been made by a toma- 
hawk. 

Before we parted with Mr. Doyle I essayed to 
tindeceive him about the pigmy race, and told 
him it was the custom with a great many tribes 
of Western Indians to expose their adult dead 
upon scaffolds, and when all the soft parts had 
wasted away, the bones of the skeleton were put 
into very short graves ; that if he would consider 
the size of the oldest skulls he had found, he 
would see that they had belonged to individuals 
with as large heads as our own, which would 
have been both inconvenient and unnecessary to 
a pigmy race. But Mr. Doyle was not at all 
pleased to have his wonder taken to pieces in 
this way, and fought lor his pigmies with all the 
pertinacity of an inventor of genera and species 
for shells, who has never seen them in their 
habitats, and has acquired his informaffi/ii -^'•om 
dead valves. On coming away, his last''- ds 
were, "You've jist got the wrong notion', and 
when you git to Nashville you'd better talk about 
.something else." 1 regretted my indiscretion, 
and was determined henceforward to be as care- 
ful about interfering betwixt a man and his pig- 
mies as I would be betwixt a man and his wife. 

We returned to Sparta by a different road, and 
had a charming walk over a calcareous spur from 
the Cumberland Mountain, passing by Simpson's 
Bridge on the Calf-killer's Creek (so'called from 
an Indian chief), near to which I found a seam 
or parting in the limestone of argillaceo-calcare- 
ous earth, with some large specimens of Apio 
crinoUea. We reached the village an hour after 
night. 

The next morning I prepared to go to a place 
called the Wihl Cat's Cove, where I was inform- 
ed there were ?reat numbers of Indian graves 
and mounds ; but it began to rain, and continued 
wet the whole day. I therefore devoted the time 
to writing and arranging my fossils, which had 
accumulated upon my hands. In the evening 
ray kind French friend gave me a letter to his 
father-in-law at St. Louis, and made me promise 
to deliver it in person. Here I took leave of him. 

During the few days I had passed at Sparta, 
our friend Nidelet always used to come and visit 
G 



us in the evening. Every body in the place knew 
him, and he knew every body; and I believe it 
was in part owing to his good offices, and the 
manner in which he always spoke of us, that so 
much attention was paid us, in having horses 
placed at our disposition to go upon our excur- 
sions. He was not pleased, however, with the 
conduct of the greater part of his debtors. His 
house at Philadelphia had permitted their coun- 
try customers about here to take silk goods to 
the amount of 70,000 dollars— a very large sum, 
certainly, for one house to trust them with in 
only one branch of trade; and many of them not 
only told him they could not pay, but would give 
him no security. Upon such occasions he was 
very prodigal of the terms ='voleurs, coquins, 
chicaneurs;" and used to say, "Ces gaillards 
sont tons de meme ; ils ne payeroient jamais s'ils 
ne craignoient pas les avocats, qui sont voleurs 
de m6me calibre." But, generally speaking, he 
was a person of the happiest disposition, had a 
great deal of drollery, and was by no means 
wanting in good sense and observation. I never 
met with anyone better fitted to get along in such 
a country ; he could sleep any where or any how, 
and could eat, drink, and smoke any thing and 
every thing that came in his way. Once, upon 
observing that I was rather fastidious about the 
use of a towel, he said, " Monsieur, quant a moi, 
je trouve que tout est bon, quand il n'y a pas de 
choix!" — a happy expression, that merits the at- 
tention of all persons travelling in frontier coun- 
tries. He was a person of unbounded curiosity, 
and, observing that I attached importance to the 
fossils I collected, would not let me rest until I 
had given him an idea of the general scope of 
geological inquiry. Often would he interrupt 
me by exclaiming, "Magnifique! magnifique!" 
As soon as we had emptied our pockets in the 
evening, he would examine every thing, and ask, 
" Est-ce que ceci 6toit avant le deluge 1" And 
when answered in the affirmative, would say, 
" Misericorde !" Then, lifting up some unios, 
he would add, "Et cecil" To which I would 
answer, "No, these are recent shells that I took 
from the river." That was sufficient for them ; 
he would instantly put them down, saying, "Ah, 
ce n'est rien done !" When we parted, he had 
just made such felicitous progress in the science 
of geology as to entertain the most sovereign con- 
tempt for every thing that had happened since 
the deluge. " Je m'etonne que vous ayez de la 
patience avec de pareilles bfitises, mon cher," he 
would say; a dreadful satire upon the labours 
of (hose philosophers who have forced all exist- 
ing things that are scarcely dissimilar to each 
other into different genera and species, and have 
excluded nothing but chimneys and haystacks 
from nomenclatorial classification. 



CHAPTER XII. 

Indian practice of burning- the TJncierwood to enaole the 
Natives to pursue the Game— The Ahorig-inal Races to he 
traced by their Mounds — General Jackson's Plantation, 
the Hermitage — His character by a Neighbour — Arrival 
at Nashville. 

On the 19th of September, at the dawn of day, 
we resumed our places in the stage-coach for 
Nashville, passing through a country with very 
much the same character as that about Sparta, 
the surface being occasionally cut up into ravines, 
and the road made rough by hummocks of lime- 
stone : the trees also, as we have seen them in 



50 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



other places, were more open in the forests, and 
had abundance of wild grass growing up amongst 
them. This is particularly the case on the pla- 
teau of the Cumberland Mountain, wheie an im- 
mense pasturage is afforded to the cattle. This 
openness of the woods gives a park-like appear- 
ance to the country, and enables you to see 
through the forest for a great distance, which is 
very pleasing. The white men, however, having 
now driven the ancient race out of their countr}-, 
the underwood is beginning to spring up quite 
thick, as the old settlers say, in comparison to its 
ancient slate. The soil was always prone to 
produce a lofty wild grass; and as this prevent- 
ed the Indians from seeing and pursuing their 
game, they were in the habit of annually setting 
fire to it, and thus kept the underwood down. 

During the morning we crossed Caneyfork, a 
fine branch of Cumberland River, where I saw 
immense quantities of large valves of the unio 
laid on the bottom of the stream. Our road was 
now up and down steep limestone slopes to a 
place called Liberty, where, as well as we could 
judge from the exterior, there was a decent tav- 
ern ; and as we had ridden thirty-three miles 
without breaking our fast, we told the people we 
hoped to get a good breakfast. But it turned out 
they had no bread even of Indian corn, and in 
its place the landlady placed before us a filthy- 
looking mess of what she called boiled pie-crv.st, 
and added some sort of meat, but so filthy and 
black that we had to give the whole matter up 
and go without anything. I remembered Mens. 
Nidelet's maxim,' but I could not act up to it 
upon this occasion. I therefore went out to col- 
lect some fossils, and placing them on the seal 
of the stage-coach, where I thought, as we were 
the only passengers, they would not be disturbed, 
I entered the house again to see if I could not 
prevail upon them to get us some milk. The 
landlord of this house was a weazen-faced, dried- 
up Methodist, and was going a short distance on 
the stage-coach with his daughter to attend a 
camp-meeting. When I returned to the vehicle 
I found him there, and he asked me " if it was 
me what had left that 'ar dirt on the seat," and 
said that he had flung it all into the road. I was 
angry enough to call him a senseless jackass, a 
matter which he did not pretend to dispute with 
me. Being a religious man, however, and hav- 
ing meant no harm. I was sorrow for having said 
it, and told him so after 1 had explained what 
fossils were. This set all right when we got into 
the stage-coach, and I got some information 
from him about the country. He said there were 
immense quantities of Indian graves in the 
neighbourhood; and that about five miles from 
his house there was a mound, situated near a 
stream that flows into the Cumberland, with a 
circumvallation going round it that would meas- 
ure three quarters of a mile, wiih a great pro- 
fusion of graves near to it. I regretted I could 
not see this to make a sketch of it; for where 
mounds of a similar character are found upon a 
long line of country, they generally point to the 
origin of the Indians who have made them. 
Some fragments of idols which T have seen in 
these valleys, whose waters flow into the Gulf of 
Mexico, are almost identical with some of the 
Mexican idols; and obsidian has been found in 
the mounds near Lake Ontairo, which is a strong 
indication of Mexican orisin, as there is no ob- 
sidian in the United States * 

* It is always useful to give the forms and dimensions of 
Indian mounds and graves when seen at isolated points, for 



At night we arrived at Lebanon, a place which 
is tolerably well laid out, and contains somegood 
buildings : where there is any soil upon the rocks, 
it is very fertile, but the horizontal limestone- 
comes so near to the surface, that the ground is 
often unfit for agricultural purposes. 

By daylight on the 20th we were again in the 
stage-coach, proceeding through a country of flat 
limestone covered with a deposit of fine soil. 
Cotton now becomes the staple of the country. 
We stopped at a poor tavern and got a wi etched 
breakfast, a not uncommon occurrence in these 
districts. Travellers always fare much better in 
farming than in cotton-planting countries, where 
butter, milk, eggs, flour, &c., receive very little 
attention from the small settlers. 

We now drove on to the Hermitage, the plan- 
tation of General Jackson, the President. I had 
seen at a tavern in Virginia a box directed to 
him, and learnt accidentally that it had been 
waiting there several weeks, the contractor of 
the stage having refused to forward it because 
the carriage was not paid, and because he was 
opposed to the General in politics. I therefore 
took it under my care, and mentioning the cir- 
cumstance to him when I met him at Campbell's 
station, the old gentleman told me that the box 
contained his favourite saddle, and that he had 
been inconvenienced for the want of it dunng^ 
the short holiday he had been indulging in from 
the seat of government. The mansion-house at 
the Hermitage — where 1 stopped to deliver this 
box — is built of brick, and is tolernbly large; 
everything was neat and clean around it, the 
fences were well kept up, and it looked like the 
substantial residence of an opulent planter. The 
estate is said to be a very fine one, to consist of 
from seven to eight hundred acies of cleared 
land, tw^o hundred acres of which are in cotton 
at this time, and to extend to the Cumberland 
river. The quantity of cotton which the land 
yields in this part of Tennessee is small com- 
pared with the great productiveness of the rich 
bottom lands in the 33rd and 32nd degrees of 
latitude farther south, where the plant comes 
much nearer to perfection. 

A plain farmer of the neighbourhood who got 
into the stage wiih us, not far from the Hermit- 
age, to go to Nashville, and who had lived near 
General Jackson betwixt twenty and thirty years, 
gave us a very intrresting account of this distin- 
guished man ; which, making allowances for the 
partiality of a neighbour who shared his politi- 
cal opinions, I have no doubt is founded in tnuh. 
He said the General was an industrious, mana- 
ging man, always up to all his undertakings, 
and most punctual in the performance of his 
business engagements: that his private conduc- 
was remarkable for uniformly inclining to jus- 
tice, generositv, and humanity: that he was an 
excellent master to his slaves, and never permit- 
ted his overseers to ill-treat them. As to his 
house, he said it was constantly full of people, 
being in fact open to every body ; iho^^e whom he 
had never heard of before being asked to dine 
when thev called, and those they had room for 
being always furnished with beds. For these 
reasons, he said, every body respected him, and 
most people loved him. As to his public con- 

the purpose of connecting: long lines of such objects where 
thev exist. One traveller sees one part of the line, and 
I another traveller sees another. The Americans have not 
I hitherto done much to make Europe acquainted with the in- 
1 terior of this part of their country ; they are as yet too much 
occupied in establishing themselves, and in making money. 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



51 



duct, he observed that he was rather an uncom- 
promising man, and liked to have his own way, 
but that his own way was always a very good 
one, and a very sensible one, if he was lel't to 
himsell'. He was man of strong passions, and 
had once been very much addicted to cock-fight- 
ing, horse-racing, and "cywsiderable cursing and 
swearing," but that he had "quit all these," and 
was in earnest about doing good to the country. 
And he added, that if the General was not al- 
ways right, it was to be laid to the score of some 
of his political friends, who imposed upon him 
for their own private ends, a thing not very diffi- 
cult to do, because when he thought a man his 
friend he was too apt to go great lengths with 
him. These remarks, which fell from our fel- 
low-traveller in a quiet, sensible manner, are so 
much in accordance with what I have observed 
and seen of one of the most remarkable men the 
United States have yet produced, that I listened 
willingly to a very curious account he gave me 
of some incidents of the General's early life, 
which, I believe, have been greatly misrepre- 
sented. 

About 1 o'clock P.M. we fell in with an excel- 
lent macadamised road, leading to Shelbyville, 
and soon after came in sight of Nashville, the 
centre of civilization of the western country. Its 
appearance was prepossessing. We soon reach- 
ed the public square, and alighted at a good- 
looking inn, called the City Hotel, where at last 
we found some comforts, after getting over 900 
miles in one way or another since the 1st of Au- 
gust. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

Description of Nashville^The Colleg-e — Professor Troost 
— The Baptist Preacher and the Rattlesnalies— Affinity 
betwixt certain Mexican Idols and others found in Se- 
quatchee Valley in Tennessee — Public Spirit of the lead- 
ing men of Tennessee— Mr. Ridley, one of the earliest 
Settlers — His adventures— Indian attack upon a stocka- 
ded Fort — Heroic conduct of Mr. Ridley's Daughter- 
Murder of White Children by the Savages, and unmiti- 
gable hatred of the Whiles to them. 
Ix the afternoon, after reading the numerous 
letters I found waiting for me at the post-office, 
and taking a hasty look at the town, [ walked 
out to a villa in the neighbourhood where my 
friend Monsieur Pageot, of the French legation, 
was passing some of the summer months with 
his lady, who i-s a native of the State of Tennes- 
see. We were delighted to meet in this distant 
part of the world, and I remained chatting with 
them until sunset. On reaching my quHrters I 
began the serious work of answering my letters, 
for I find it one of the very best habits of a man 
who has a great deal to do, to leave, if possible, 
nothing undone that belongs to the day, and at 
any rate to make a clear week of it. 

Nashville contains about 6000 inhabitants, 
has a public square, churches, meetmg- ho uses' 
markets, &c. (fee, and is built upon a loftv knoll 
of limestone, the fossiliferous flat rocks of which 
come to the surface : there is also a commodious 
briilire which connee-ts the town with the nor- 
iherji hank of the Cumberland River, on the road 
to Kentucky. Some of the streets are steep, and 
enciiinhered with sharp pieces of limestone, that 
punish the feet severely in walking. There is 
an excellent spacious building in the vicinity 
called the Penitentiarv, and another is erecting I 
for a hospital. Coming from the wiMerness" 
where we have been leading rather a rude life I 



1 for some time, Nashville, with its airy salubri- 
\ ous position, and its active bustling populalion, 
j is quite what an oasis in the desert would be; 
i and when improvements are made in the naviga- 
I tion of the Cumberland River, and in the public 
I roads, it cannot fail to become a populous town. 
[ One of my first movements was a walk to the 
college to see Professor Troost, who is a great 
enthusiast in geology. It is to be mentioned to 
the honour of "the State of Tennessee, that it has 
been one of the first of the American States to 
patronise science, by allowing hiin five hundred 
dollars a year as geologist to the State, in addi- 
tion to his appointment at the college as profes- 
sor of chemistry and natural history, to which a 
salary of one thousand dollars a year is attached ; 
so that the worthy professor is thus enabled to 
enjoy all the comlbrts of life, and to make him- 
self perfectly happy as the distribtitor of these 
sums ; for, like all philo.sophic enthusiasts, he 
places no value on money, and willingly gives 
any of the country people "twenty dollars to bring 
him a live rattlesnake, or anything new or curi- 
ous in natural history. Everything of the ser- 
pent kind he has a particular fancy for, and has 
always a number of them — that he has tamed — 
in his pockets or under his waistcoat. To loll 
back in his rocking-chair, to talk about geology, 
and pat the head of a large snake, when twining 
itself about his neck, is to him supreme felicity. 
Every year in the vacation he makes an excur- 
sion to the hills, and I was told that, upon one 
of these occasions, being taken up by the stage- 
coach, which had several members of Congress 
in it going to Washington, the learned Doctor 
took his seat on the top with a large basket, the 
lid of which was not over and above well secu- 
red. Near to this basket sat a Baptist preacher 
on his way to a great public immersion. His 
reverence, awakening from a reverie he had fall- 
en into, beheld to his unutterable horror two rat- 
tlesnakes raise their fearful heads out of the bas- 
ket, and immediately precipitated himself upon 
the driver, who, almost knocked off his seat, no 
sooner became apprised of the character of his 
ophidian outside passengers than he jumped 
upon the ground with the reins in his hands, 
and was followed instanter by the preacher. 
The "insides," as soon as they learned what 
was going on, immediately became outsides, 
and nobody was left but the Doctor and his rat- 
tlesnakes on the top. But the Doctor, not en- 
tering into the general alarin, quietly placed his 
greatcoat over the basket, and tied it down with 
his haiiiikerchief, which, when he had done, he 
said, " Gendleinen, only don't let dese poor dings 
pite von, und dey won't hoort you." 

Dr. Troost is a native of Bois le Due, in Hol- 
land, and is a short thick man, with a physiog- 
no!nv entirely Gerinan, but pleasing and henew 
oient; his hair is white, and his dress not re- 
ma rkably neat. He was'a sUigeon in the lllllCt 
army, and when he landed at New York, was 
on his way to Java with a commission 'from 
Louis Bonaparte, then his sovereign, to examine 
the natural history of that island : learnin?, how- 
ever, that Java had been taken by the English 
he proceeded to Philadeldhia with an intentfoa 
to settle there. Dissatisfied with the neglect he 
experienced, he went to New Harmony^ in Illi- 
nois, with Le Sueur, another naturalLst ; and 
becoming diso-nsted with the quackerv of the So- 
cialist philosophers who had assembled there to 
practice their insane theories, he, in a happy 
hour, came to Nashville, where his merit is ac- 



S3 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



inowledged. His private room at his house is 
full of snakes, fossils, turtles, birds, fishes, Indi- 
an relics, &c., &c., all thrown together in the 
greatest confusion. It makes no matter what it 
is, the Doctor is such a confirmed virtuoso, that 
everything is fish thai comes to his net. The 
museum of the college, of which I had heard a 
great deal, contains numerous objects collected 
and placed there by him, chemical apparatus, 
dead animals, stuffed birds, turtles, fossils, min- 
erals, books, all stowed away without the least 
legard to order, and where none but the master- 
hand of all this confusion can possibly ferret 
out anything that may be wanted. Although a 
man gitted with a strong intellect, yet the organ 
of order seems to be rather deficient with the 
•worthy Professor. I found him a most friendly 
and obliging person, and during my stay in Nash- 
ville went to see him as often as the public ex- 
aminations, now going on at the college, would 
admit of. Amongst his Indian relics I observed 
some (I had seen fragments of a like kind found 
in the valleys near Sparta) bearing a close re- 
semblance to the Mexican idols or Teutes. One 
of them was very interesting. Some portions 
of a large Cassis cormda — a shell found near 
Tampico, in the Gulf of Mexico— had been bro- 
ken away, and one of these images or idols was 
placed upon a point of the Columella as a kind 
of altar. This was found in Sequalchee Valley, 
in Bledsoe County, through which runs a tribu- 
tary of the Tennessee, whose waters flow into 
the Mississippi. This Sequatchee Valley seems 
to have been a fovourite resort of the Indians in 
old times, tor it contains great numbers of their 
graves and monuments. When the language of 
the Cherokee Indians comes to be analytically 
examined, some affinities to the Aztec dialects 
may possibly be discovered; and it certainly is 
a fact of some importance to the inquirer after 
ihe origin of the Indians, that there are some 
points of resemblance between the Cherokees 
and Mexicans, and that the first had been seat- 
ed, long before America was discovered, in warm 
sheltered valleys that debouched into rivers emp- 
tying into the Gulf of Mexico. 

I received a great deal of pleasure during my 
stay here in attending the examinations at the 
college. One of the days was appropriated to 
Dr. Troost, and a great number of ladies and 
gentlemen assembled in his laboratory. The 
students read essays on geology and natural his- 
tory that deserved much commendation, and af- 
fcrded me, for the first time, such a gratifying 
spectacle as I had never before witnessed in any 
of the colleges of this cotmtry. The Doctor 
says, that although he has had some sensible, 
Glever youths under his care, he has not yet met 
■with one enthusiast — therefore I do not appre- 
liEad the science will make a very rapid prog- 
ress here. '^^^ other branches of learning ap- 
peared to me to receive great aiie.ntion ; Mr. 
Hamilton, the professor of mathematics, is an 
able man, and Dr. Lindsay, the principal, seems 
•worthy of his situation. The students, in sev- 
eral instances, had made very good progress in 
the languages, and what struck and surprised 
me was the purity of their elocution, which was 
divested of evervthing like provincialism. I 
could not help complimenting Dr. Lindsay upon 
this point, for it is not to be concealed that the 
vulgar corruptions which are silently taking 
place in the English tongue in the Southern 
States threaten to establish a sort of Creole dia- 
lect, that, in concert with the eifects of their 



popular institutions of government, may rapidly 
etfect the total corruption of our language there. 
The dialects of Lancashire and Yorkshirr 
are unintelligible enough to strangers, but tlie 
respectability of antiquity attaches to iheni , 
they are the ancient language of the people of 
those districts, have been honestly transmitted 
down to them, and are slowly yielding to the 
progress of improvement. Here the people have 
been furnished with one of the finest languages 
spoken in Christendom, yet they seem to be ta- 
king such pains to make it indecently vulgar 
and obscure, that, although accustomed to it, I 
frequently am left almost ignorant of what they 
really mean to say. A liberal institution, like 
this college, conducted in the manner it is, is an 
inestimable blessing to the state, and will enlarge 
and purify the minds of hundreds whose shining 
examples will assist to keep down the vulgari- 
ties that must overrun every country where ed- 
ucation is not worthily attended to. The gen- 
tlemen of Tennessee who patronise this college, 
deserve therefore to be mentioned with all hon- 
our as the benefactors of the coming generation. 
No traveller who comes into the country as I 
have done, can feel anything but respect for 
what he sees around him in this place. When 
I first visited North America, in 1806, the word 
Tennessee was mentioned as a kind of Ultima 
Thule. Now it is a Sovereign State, with a 
population of upwards of 700,000 inhabitants, 
has given a President to the United States, and 
has established a geological chair in the wilder- 
ness. The first log-hut ever erected in Nash- 
ville was in 1780; now there is a handsome 
town, good substantial brick houses, with pub- 
lic edifices that would embellish any city in 
America, and certainly, as far as architecture is 
concerned, one of the most chaste episcopal 
churches in the United States. Besides these 
there are numerous extensive warehouses, evi- 
dences of a brisk commerce, and an exceeding- 
ly well constructed bridge thrown across the 
Cumberland Puver. It adds greatly too to the 
interest of the place, that a few of the hardy in- 
dividuals who, with their rifles on their shoul- 
ders, penetrated here, and became the first set- 
tlers, still live to see the extraordinary changes 
which have taken place. 

In one of my geological walks I called at the 
residence of one of these venerable men, a Mr. 
Ridley, who possesses a plantation about four 
milesfroin Nashville. Going along the road, a 
group of wooden buildings of a rude and com- 
paratively antique structure could not but attract 
my attention, especially one of them which stood 
alone, and differed from all the others. On en- 
tering a room of the dwelling-house I found a 
tall strapping young negro wench reeling cotton, 
with a machine that made such a detestible 
creaking, that I could scarce hear my own voice 
when I ask«d her if there was a spring of water 
near. As soon as she pointed it out, my son 
took a gourd shell, kept for the purpose, and 
went for water: in the mean lime I passed into 
the court-yard, where I found an elderly woman, 
rather masculine in her manner, very stout in 
her person, and strong in her movements. Upon 
my asking her if she was the mistress of the 
house, she very civilly replied that she was not, 
" but that her mainmy was," who was coming. 
I now perceived a much older woman, extreme- 
ly emaciated and sallow, but erect in her per- 
son, and verv lively in her manner of speaking, 
coming froni a log-hut which served'as a kitch- 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



51 



en. This aged person naving obligingly asked 
me if I would not go into the house and take a 
chair, I went towards it, and near the door found 
an aged man with a hoary head, eyes that would 
scarcely bear the light, and every mark of ex- 
treme old age about him. He shook hands 
kindly with me, and asked ine various questions, 
who i was, where I came from, where I was go- 
ing to, and was particularly anxious to know 
how old I was, seeing that my hair was grey. 
1 spent the morning with this patriarchal family, 
and ingratiated myself so much with them, that 
they imparted their history to me. 

The old man, Daniel Ridley, was ninety-five 
years old, or would be so the 1st of January, 
1835, being born on the first day of the year 1740, 
in the reign of George 1 1. The emaciated wom- 
an was his second wite ; she was eighty years 
old, and during the fifiy-four years they had been 
man and wife, she had borne him eight children. 
Miss Betsy, the stout woman — for so she was 
called by the slaves — was a daughter by his first 
marriage, and was now sixty-two years old: she 
had been married twice, and already had great 
grand -children. The patriarch himself, of 
course, had great great grand-children, one of 
whom, a descendant of his oldest son, now in 
his seventy-second year, was to be married next 
year, so he may yet live to bless his fifth genera- 
tion. He told me he had a short time ago been 
counting his descendants, but after getting as far 
as three hundred, he found it very troublesome, 
and had given it up. These had sprung from 
sixteen children, the produce of both his mar- 
riages. A curious little trait disclosed itself in 
the old man when he first began to converse, 
which is often observed in very old people. We 
were talking in the room where the cotton-ma- 
chine was screaking, and he articulated so fee- 
bly that it sometimes prevented my hearing what 
he said ; I therefore mentioned it to the old lady, 
who bade the girl to stop, but the wench flatly 
refused, and upon my telling her that she must 
stop, she said, " The old man won't let me stop." 
I now turned to him to explain the necessity of 
her stopping whilst we were conversing; but I 
found it unnecessary — he was shrewd enough, 
and knew what we were talking about. " If she 
stops," said he, "she won't get her task done." 
At ninety-five years of age, on the brink of the 
grave, he could not bear to lose the value of a 
halfpenny — for the delay would not have cost 
him more — of the labour of one of his slaves. 
Miss Betsy told me before I went away, that 
when he was occasionally indisposed, and they 
had to lay him on his bed in the same room, he 
insisted upon the machine going from morn to 
night, and always scolded the girl if she stopped 
an instant. 

Old Mr. Ridley informed me that he was a 
native of Williamsburgh, in Virginia, that he 
emigrated from thence on marrying his second 
wife in 1780, and established himself on the 
north fork of the Holslon, where they lived be- 
twixt ten and eleven years, continually engaged 
in troublesome contests with the Indians; but 
this he did not mind, he was naturally industri- 
ous, and having eight children by his first wile, 
to whom he was married before he was twenty, 
it was necessary for him to work hard. He had 
also been a soldier in General Braddock's armj'^, 
and wns thoroughly inured to fatigue and dan- 
ger. Hearing of a settlement that was making 
on the Cumberland River, he joined a large par- 
ty, who, having built boats, came down the 



Holston the Tennessee, and the Cumberland 
rivers, anout eight hundred miles, to Nashville, 
where they landed in 1790. The families com 
posing this expedition proceeding to settle them- 
selves, he selected the site he now lived on fo; 
his plantation. His first care was to clear an 
acre of ground for his fort, and construct a strong 
stockade around it, with a gate, as the Choctaw. 
Chickasaw, and Cherokee Indians were fiercely 
contending against this intrusion into their hunt- 
ing-grounds. Within the stockade he built a. 
double log-house, consisting, in accordance with, 
the general custom, of two rooms, with a spa- 
cious passage between them, putting the who!'.- 
under one roof One of the rooms served tli j 
family to sleep in, the other for a kitchen, ana 
the passage was a convenient place to eat and 
sit in. A few yards from this he erected a well- 
constructed block-house, for the family to fly to 
if the stockade was forced. This block-house 
yet stands on the N.E. corner of the fort, and was 
the building which we had observed was so dif- 
ferent from the others. On the S.E. corner oi 
the fort he placed another block-house, and or. 
the S.W. corner another. On the N.W. corner 
he had not built one, because it was protected 
by the others. Within the area were a few oth- 
er buildings for the convenience of their horses 
and cattle. 

This was the general plan adopted by the 
whites for the protection of their families against 
the Indians;. and certainly the block-house ap- 
pears to be a very convenient and eflicacious 
building for the purpose it is intended to serve. 
The one we saw was about twenty feet square, 
and was built thus: — next to the ground were 
six round logs about twenty-one feet long, laid 
upon each other, and well mortised: next came 
a log about twenty-four feet long, on the west 
side, and a similar one on the other sides, all 
well mortised. In this way a projection — even 
with the floor that divides the upper chamber of 
the block-house from the lower one — is formed 
beyond the ground-tier of logs, upon which an 
upper wall of round logs is built, after which the 
building is roofed in. Upon the roof pieces of 
wood are fixed for the garrison to step upon and 
extinguish any fire the Indians might succeed in 
setting to it with their arrows. Loop-holes also 
are made in the logs of the upper chamber to en- 
able them to fire at any of the Indians who ven- 
tured to show themselves; as well as others ia 
the projecting part of the floor, from whence they 
could fire perpendicularly down upon their be- 
siegers, if they should attempt to run up to the 
block-house to set fire to it. 

Mr. Ridley never was attacked in his fort; but 
a neighbouring one, on the plantation of his son- 
in-law, Mr. Buchanan, became the scene of an 
affair still talked of by many of the inhabitants 
of Nashville with great interest, and of which I 
had the details from the Ridley family. Mr. Bu- 
chanan resided about two miles from the Rid- 
leys: they had removed into Tennessee togeth- 
er, had settled near each other, and Mr. Buchan- 
an's son had married Mr. Ridley's daughter, 
Sally, a woman of very large dimensions, weigh- 
ing 260 lbs. She had a courageous spirit corre- 
sponding to her size, and having been trained 
from her early youih amidst dangers, had al- 
ways — asherfaiher informed me— been remark- 
able for her personal resolution, and her patieni 
endurance of hardships. The fort of old Mr 
Buchanan had once been surprised by the Chero- 
kees and Choctaws, when the Indians, rushini 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



into the room where the old pair had taken ref- 
uge, butchered the old man in the presence of his 
"wife, who, kneeling with her back to the wall, 
and imploring their mercy, had the muzzles of 
their guns pushed close to her face to frighten 
her. She was, howev^er, spared. "I once ask- 
ed her," said old Mrs. Ridley to me, " how she 
felt when she saw her old man she had lived 
"with so long tomahawked in that way; but she 
gave me no answer, and putting her hands be- 
fore her face cried so, I thought she would have 
broken her heart." In 1792, when the attack 
upon the fort which is going to be narrated took 
place, Mr. Ridley's son-in-law, Buchanan, had 
possession of it. 

The Indians had been gathering for some 
time, and the white settlers had been informed 
through their spies that it was their intention first 
to attack and subdue Buchanan's fort, then Rid- 
ley's, and afterwards another on the Cumber- 
land. Four hundred settlers had assembled, and 
had waited from day to day at Buchanan's, but 
it being rumoured that the Indians had given up 
their intention, almost the whole of them return- 
ed to their own homes, the insecurity of their 
families keeping them in continued anxiety, so 
that only nineteen of the whole muster remain- 
ed, all of whom belonged to the immediate vi- 
cinity. One Saturday evening, a Frenchman, 
and a half-blooded Indian, arrived in great haste 
at the fort, to say that the Indians were on their 
"way, and would soon be there. They were not 
believed, even when the half-blood told them 
they might cut his head off if the savages did not 
reach the place in a few hours. Two men, how- 
ever, were dispatched to reconnoitre, and pro- 
ceeding heedlessly, they fell into an ambush, and 
"were both of them killed and scalped. These 
messengers not returning, it was concluded that 
they had extended their reconnaissance, and that 
therefore the Indians could not be near: the eon- 
sequence was that the Frenchman and the half- 
blood, who had professed to have come amongst 
them to take white wives, were now looked upon 
■with great suspicion. 

In this state of things all the men of the fort 
retired to rest, leaving Sally Buchanan to sit up 
in the kitchen. Whilst she was listening in the 
dead of the night to a noise at a distance, which 
she at first supposed indicated the approach of 
the messengers, suddenly she heard the horses 
and cows struggling and running about in the 
enclosure in great agitation — for, as Mrs. Rid- 
ley said, " Cows is mortal feared, as well as hor- 
ses, of them parfict devils the Indians ;" — and un- 
derstanding the signs, she immediately roused 
the men with the cry of " Indians, boys ! In- 
dians!" Instantly arming themselves, the men 
flew to the gate, which 900 warriors of the Chero- 
kees, Choctaws, and Chickasaws were attempt- 
ing to force. The gate was thoroughly well se- 
cured, or it must have given way totheir efforts ; 
but the Indians fortunately making no diversion 
at any other point, the brave men inside had but 
this to direct their attention to; and animated by 
a noble determination to defend the place to the 
last extremity, they made an active and vigor- 
ous defence, answering to the deafening yells of 
the savages by a shot at them whenever a chance 
occurred of its taking effect. In the mean time, 
it being discovered that the absentees had td^-en 
almost all the bullets with them, the heroic Sally 
Buchanan, thinking the men would be more ef- 
fectually employed at the stockade, undertook 
the task of supplying them, and at the kitchen- 



fire actually cast almost all the bullets that were 
fired, whilst a female relative who was staying 
witii her clipped the necks off. A.s fast as they 
were ready, Sally would run out with them, and 
cry aloud, " Here, boys, here's bullets for you ; 
but mind you don't sarve'em out till you're sure 
of knocking some of them screaming devils 
over." 

This incident is equal to any thing we read of 
in history; and so much were the men encour- 
aged by the indomitable spirit of Sally, that the 
Indians, after a fruitless attempt to force their way 
in, which lasted several hours, becoming appre- 
hensive that the report of the rifles and the up- 
roar — which Mrs. Ridley heard very distinctly 
two miles ofl' — would bring succours to the gar- 
rison, drew off before daylight, after losing sev- 
eral of their number. And thus the garrison, by 
its prompt and gallant resistance, not only saved 
itself, but all the other forts which the Indians 
had laid their account in capturing. 

At this period the most unquenchable hatred 
existed betwixt the Indians and the white set- 
tlers, the first strugglingfortheirhuntinggrounds, 
the last for their lives. The Indians never spared 
the male whites when they could destroy them, 
and very seldom the females. As they were not 
always in sufficient force to attack the settle- 
ments openly, they proweled about in small par- 
ties, and placed themselves in ambush where the 
whites were accustomed to pass. Mr. Buchan- 
an had a grist-mill near his fort, to which the 
neighbours used to resort to have their flour 
made. Upon an occasion when Indians were 
not supposed to be near, one of their female ac- 
quaintances who lived in the vicinity sent her 
four young boys to the mill for grist for the fam- 
ily, thinking they would not only be able to as- 
sist each other, but would be a mutual protec- 
tion. These little fellows were unsuspectingly 
surprised by some savages not far from the house, 
and the wretched mother had the unspeakable 
misery of seeing them all dragged into the woods 
to be scalped. Two of these boys survived and 
got renewed scalps, but they were always bald. 
Upon another occasion, a young girl was going 
on horseback to a friend's not more than two 
miles distant, and persuaded another young fe- 
male, her friend, to get up behind and accompa- 
ny her. Before they had got halfway, however, 
the girl who rode behind was shot down by some 
Indians, and the other escaped by the fleetness of 
her horse, which she urged with desperation, and 
with which she took such a desperate leap as to 
be the wonder of the generation she belonged to. 

Still influenced by a feeling of unmitigable 
and unsatiable revenge against the Indians for 
practising such inhuman warfare, it is not sur- 
prising that when GeneralJackson went against 
the Creeks in 1813, the enthusiasm of the Ten- 
nesseans to serve under the bravest and most 
warm-hearted of their citizens should have been 
general. Four of old Mr. Ridley's sons accom- 
panied him. "The boys would go," said the old 
man to me: "I couldn't have stopped them if I 
had wished ; but I did not wish to do it." " Ay," 
added his old wife, " I told my boys they were 
as welcome to go with Jackson as they were to 
sit down to dinner." " Yes," said Miss Betsy, 
the sister of the Amazonian Sally, and the great- 
sfi-andmother of several children, "I'd fight for 
.Jackson myself, any day." And when I took 
leave of this fine honest family, the old man 
grasped my hand in his, and said, " When you 
get to Washington, tell Jackson I was sorry hs 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



55 



did not call on me; it is the first time he went 
away without calling; but I know he couldn't 
come; he sent me word he couldn't. Tell him," 
said he, and the old man, to the great admira- 
tion of my son and myself, absolutely sobbed, 
whilct his aged eyes were suifused with tears, 
"tell him 1 love him — I love him better than I 
love any body: he nas always been kind to me; 
there was always a good understanding betwixt 
us " As I was g':^ing out at the door, he added, 
" Tell Jackson to send me a pair of specs : if I 
could only see to read the Testament, it would 
not be so hard to live ; but I can scarce see at 
all."* I am rather afraid this was a piece of 
stinginess in the old patriarch, who could have 
found plenty of spectacles in Nashville. But he 
is a great economist; for a carpenter, who was 
doing a job to his house, having got it done a 
couple of hours before night,fthe old man, seeing 
a plank or two to spare, obliged him to stay the 
two hours out and make up the planks into a 
cotlin for himself, which he actually keeps un- 
der his bed; and there being still some stuff to 
spare, he told the carpenter it was a great pity 
there was not enough to make another for Mrs. 
Ridley. 

I learned afterwards that some partial .settle- 
ments had been made about here before Mr. Rid- 
ley came to Tennessee, and, indeed, as early as 
1779. General Jackson settled on a plantation 
near to that where he now resides in 1778, but 
happened to be from home when the Indians 
gathered in 1792. Dr. Robinson told me that his 
father was the first settler in 1779, and that he 
built his log-hut at French Lick, a mineral 
springt in the surburbs of Nashville. This lick 
-was resorted to by wild animals; and a Mons. 
Monbrun, a French trader and hunter from Kas- 
Icaskias, in the stats of Illinois, who came here 
to trade with the Indians, used to say that he has 
often sat on the bank of a ravine near the spring, 
and picked the finest buffaloes ofl^ with his rifle. 
Mr. Robinson, finding the country fertile and in- 
viting, left his party to plant corn, and returned 
to the east to conduct a larger number of his 
friends back, who were anxious to join his set- 
dement at French Lick. These he brought, with 
their live stock, by a circuitous route to avoid 
some Cherokee towns; and, on reaching their 
destination, proceeded to occupy the country un- 
der grants of land from the State of North Car- 
olina, and to erect stockaded forts. No Indians 
had settled in these parts ; and the whites, finding 
the country vacant, took possession without cer- 
emony. But although the Indians did not live 
here, they considered the country as their hunt- 
ing ground. Game was very abundant where 
they resided, and this was the reason why they 
did not even visit French Lick annually. Find- 
ing, however, that the whites were increasing in 
numbers, they commenced hostilities about a 
year and a half after the arrival of the whites, 
and waged war incessantly against them with 
more or less vigour for fifteen years, harassing 
them so much, that at one time, disheartened by 
great losses of their children and friends, and 
seeing no end to the conflict, they were on the 
point of coming to a determination to abandon 



* General Jackson, to whom I related this interview on 
my return to Washington, confirmed all the incidents here 
mentioned, and said he certainly would send the old patri- 
arch a pair of spectacles. 

t This is a spring of sulphuretted hydroeen, and the tem- 
perature is 52'^ Fahr. Persons from New Orleans and other 
rarts of Louisiana come here during the summer mouths. 



the country. Of seven males in the family of 
Mr. Robinson, who was the principal leader of 
the whites, only two were left, himself and a son. 
Dr. Robinson told me that, when a boy, he re- 
membered his elder brother being broug'ht home 
dead from a camp where he was making m'aple 
sugar. The Indians had killed him and cut his 
head ofl". 



CHAPTER XIV. 

The religious sect of the Campbellites — Order of Priest- 
hood confined to handsome young fellows — Geology of this 
part of Tennessee — Section of the Country made by the 
Cumberland River for 300 miles— Remarkable ancient bed 
of broken Shells— Harpeth Ridge— Unios of the Western 
waters. 

On returning from my daily excursions to the 
hotel, I had always two or three agreeable fam- 
ilies to resort to, where I could pass an hour or 
two pleasantly. One evening I went to a soiree 
at a Mrs. M'C* * *'s, where the most select of 
the Nashviilian ladies were supposed to be pres- 
ent. Some of them were I'ashionably dressed 
and were pretty, rather provincial and hearty in 
their manners perhaps, but the evening went off" 
quite en regie, and I was very much entertained. 
I was told afterwards that the party was given 
to a lady on her marriage to a preacher of the 
CampbeUite persuasion, and that the greater por- 
tion of the company belonged to that sect, one of 
the most curious of the innumerable variety of 
religious persuasions in America. 

The Episcopal, or English Church as it is often 
called, appears, although it has no connexion 
with the government, to be the only steady church 
in the United States, keeping up an impregnable 
respectability by adhering to the Liturgy and to 
written sermons; a salutary practice that has 
hitherto rendered it the hope and asylum of all 
educated people in that country: but the dissent- 
ing churches, on the other hand, seem to be rath- 
er at sixes and sevens, and although many of 
them are temporarily popular, and filled to re- 
pletion by occasional favourite preachers, yet 
they are as prone to empty themselves again, 
upon the manifestation of any innovation indieir 
doctrine or manners. The slightest deviation ol 
opinion or sanctity on the part of a favourite 
preacher is sure to raise up a party of pious cen- 
sors, and thus cliques are formed in a congrega- 
tion, upon the principle that it is quite wrong not 
to hate people with a perfect hatred that will not 
be of your opinion, and quite right to take sides 
against them who permit themselves to be found 
out. Then comes the natural operation of the 
voluntary principle, the breaking up of a con- 
gregation, and the formation of a new sect. 

I have heard this very common fermentatory 
process much commended, as one which, by cre- 
ating numerous sects, secures the United States 
from the preponderance of any one: a kind of 
logic which perhaps will not convince every- 
body, since it is not yet quite so clear that the 
possession of a great many things of doubtful 
and fluctuating importance is better than that of 
one whose excellence and integrity has for so 
long a period protected it from .serious schisms. 
Experience seems to teach, that to become rea- 
sonable in this life, man is as much in want of a 
little steady spiritual influence to guide his mor- 
al way, as"of legal aiuhority to restrain his phys- 
ical actions; and time will show whether this is 
not as applicable to the United States as to the 
mother country, which owes so much of its mor- 



56 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



al position to the union of Church and State. 
As to the Campbellites, whom I saw upon this 
occasion, there certainly was nothing vulgar 
amongst them ; as I'ar as appearances went, ttiey 
might — for aught I could discover— have been 
Episcopalians; and I was curious to learn what 
were the opinions or doctrines which had — tor 
the moment — united so many polite people. A 
lady, to whom I spoke on the subject, and who 
was a Campbellite herself, was kind enough to 
ask me to drink tea with her, and meet one of 
their popular preachers, a Mr. F* * * * * *. I 
willingly accepted the invitation, and passed a 
very pleasant evening. The amount of informa- 
tion 1 collected was, that Mr. Campbell, the found- 
er of the sect, was an Irishman, and that they 
agreed perfectly with most other religious com- 
munities on one point, to wit, that they were quite 
right, and all other persuasions quite wrong. 
They deny all priesthood, and their preachers are 
consequently not ordained, but are elected by 
their congregations, and are men not above the 
middle age. All the members of this sect call 
each other brother and sister, and marriage is a 
mere civil ceremony amongst them, wanting 
even the formality observed in the union of Glua- 
kers. They are Baptists too, and have public 
immersions. Mr. F* * * * * * entered into a 
conversation with me respecting their religious 
opinions, which I would willingly have declined 
at that time, there being three or four very pret- 
ty women present ; but he pressed me rather hard, 
and being a line-looking man of about 34, natu- 
rally felt interested in vindicating the sect before 
so many handsome sisters. After some explana- 
tions, he repeatedly told me they could not be 
wrong, because the New Testament was the true 
guide for the universal church of Christ, and that 
they had constituted it theirs. I asked him if he 
understood Hebrew and Greek, to which he re- 
plied that he understood nothing but English, and 
did not want any other kind of learning to under- 
stand the Testament. Upon this I con tented my- 
self with saying, that those who faithfully ob- 
served the precepts contained in it would no 
doubt lead innocent and happy lives, but that I 
believed even his translation did not authorise 
him to say that other Christians were wrong: 
that the Testament, nevertheless, was but a trans- 
lation from another language, and that all trans- 
lations were so far liable to error as to be sub- 
ject to different constructions: if translations, 
then, were liable to misconstruction, who was 
likely to be right— the learned men who had deep- 
ly studied the Testament and the history of the 
church of Christ in the ancient languages, or 
those who, knowing no language but English, had 
no light but conjecture and party-feeling to guide 
them in their doubts'? That it appeared to me 
as a matter of course, if men were divided into 
two sects, one believing in the validity of an or- 
der of priesthood, and another disbelieving it, 
that the sect founded and kept up by men with- 
out human learning was more likely to have de- 
parted from the truth, and was more likely to 
disappear, than the Episcopal Church, which 
was but a copy of that of the mother country, 
the divine authority of which had been so well 
illustrated by the learning and holiness of the 
great scholars and divines that had adorned so 
many generations. 

He made no reply to thi.s, merely saying that 
he did not know the ancient languages, but 
that he wished he did, as he knew what an 
advantage learning gave to men. One of the 



ladies, who did not seem pleased at the turn rhe 
conversation had taken, asked me if I seriously 
thought that " Campbellism" ever would " fal). 
through;" 10 which I replied, that I could not 
venture to suppose so, as long as all the pretty 
women and handsome preachers combined to 
keep it up ; upon which she good-naturedly said, 
she believed I " was making fun of them all " 
and then I took my leave. ' 

The geology of'this part of the country is ex- 
tremely interesting. We had now left behind 
us the highly inclined strata of the Silurian sys- 
tem, and had got upon horizontal beds, evident- 
ly the equivalents of those of the mountain-lime- 
stone of England ; many of which, in the neigh- 
bourhood of Nashville, have been, with their 
fossils, accurately made out by Dr. Troost. The 
rocks of the Cumberland mountains constitute a 
lofty chain, which forms the boundary betwixt the 
Slates of Kentucky and Virginia, and runs ihence 
to the north-east. The great bituminous coal- 
field of the western country appears to lie prin- 
cipally vvest of this chain, at the summit of which 
indications of coal are found ; and the geological 
position of the Nashville beds may be deduced 
independent of their fossils, from the section 
which the course of the Cumberland river has 
opened, from its source in the state of Kentucky 
10 Nashville in Tennessee, a distance of about 
300 miles. 

At the falls of this river, in Whitely County. 
Kentucky, the river, leaving the sandstone oi" 
the coal measures, has worn its way through a 
quartzose conglomerate grit, united by silicious 
and argillaceous cement, to the depth of about 
500 feet, and continues to flow over it for some 
distance beyond the falls. Pursuing its way, it 
next cuts through a bed, consisting principal!)'- 
of shale, about 200 feet thick, in which are three 
horizontal veins of good bituminous coal, each 
from three and a half to four and a half feet 
thick. The river runs on the bottom of this bed. 
about three miles below the mouth of Laurel 
river, and the banks continue to expose the coal 
veins for a distance of seven miles below Rock 
Castle River : here the Cumberland has cut into 
a bed of compact limestone with an oolitic struc- 
ture—similar to the oolitic bed of the mountain 
limestone of England— about 300 feet thick. 
To this succeeds a series of horizontal calcare- 
ous beds, about 200 feet thick, which, at the 
mouth of Big Indian Creek, show them.selves in 
the banks, together with a seam of bituminous 
shale, which is 20 feet thick at Big Indian Creek, 
and is continued at Harpeth Ridge near Nash- 
ville. Near to the creek the river has worn its 
channel into the flat beds of limestone which are 
found at Nashville, and which may be estimated 
at 300 feet thick, down to the junction of the 
Cumberland with the Ohio. The section of 
these beds would appear thus : 



Cong-lomerate grit 

Shale with coal 

Compact limestone .... 
Horizontal calcareous beds . . 

Bituminous shale , 

Lower series of beJs to the Ohio 



300 
1S20 



Many of these beds, all of which are horizon- 
tal, contain fossils. In the compact limestone a 
trilobite is found, which appears not to difl^er 
from the Calymene Blumenbachii, but it is so 
incorporated wiih the rock, that I have never 
procured a specimen that was not much mutila- 
ted ; and, as has been mentioned before, ih» 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



57 



chert in the seams is often beautifully agatized 
with a chalcedonic botryoidal appearance. 

The lowest point at which 1 had an opportu- 
nity (I did not pursue the Cumberland to the 
Ohio) of examining the series was on the shore 
of the Cumberland at Nashville, the river being 
then very low. The various beds through which 
the river has cut its channel, and which also 
appear in parts of the neighbouring country, 
vary a good deal in their crystalline structure 
and in their organic remains. The lowest on 
the shore of the Cumberland were of a dark blu- 
ish grey colour, with a structure between that of 
old granular and compact secondary limestone : 
they occasionally abounded with nodules of sili- 
ceous matter resembling chert, black outside, 
but greyish within, their mineral substance ap- 
pearing to have been infiltrated into cavities that 
perhaps once contained organic matter. The 
rocks were -frequently covered with fucoidal 
strings and zoophytes, that had become quite 
black by exposure to the sun when the river was 
low ; and of these the characteristic marks were 
obliterated, and their surfaces rounded off by 
aqueous attrition and exposure ; they stood, how- 
ever, in singular relief, the calcareous matter 
having been rubbed away and the siliceous mat- 
ter lef't. Favosites, quite black, were in abun- 
dance, in large irregular round masses, with sharp 
crisped circles ; these, as well as the Stromato- 
pora, with concentric lamina and tubercules, 
are called by the country people " petrified buf- 
falo dung." Here also is found a long concam- 
erated shell, which Dr. Troost has called " Co- 
notubularia" which I have seen before on the 
limestone beds, near the Saguenay River, in 
Lower Canada. The other zoophytes belonging 
to this bed, which I saw, such as calamopora, 
coluinnaria, &c., were all siliceous. 

In a superior bed, the cavities were filled with 
interesting accidental minerals, their walls being 
lined with carbonate of lime, upon which beau- 
tiful crystals of strontian, of a fine sky blue col- 
our, sulphate of barytes, fluate of lime, fibrous 
gypsum, and crystals of sulphuret of zinc upon 
brown spar, often appeared, as they sometimes 
occur in a galeniferous district. This lime- 
stone, when rubbed, has a faint smell of bitu- 
men. Dr. Troost pointed out to me, in the 
banks of the Cumberlahd, a conglomerated bed 
of dead shells, fractured, and much comminu- 
ted, where all the valves appeared to be single, 
at least I could find no bivalves that adhered to 
each other. This must have been a bed of dead 
shells before the rock became indurated. It lies 
between two beds of compact limestone, and is 
in some places 15 feet thick, whilst in others it 
thins off to one or two feet, and then disappears, 
as though it had been an ancient drift of broken 
shells. Lying, as it does, betwixt beds filled 
with perfect bivalves and other unmutilated fos- 
sils, it is a remarkable deposit, which speaks 
volumes about the ancient state of the submarine 
surface of the earth. Above these beds is a stra- 
tum of coarse granular limestone, covered al- 
most with that beautiful fossil called Strophomc- 
na rugosa. 

But there is a ridge near Nashville, called 
Harpeth Ridge, where a good section of some of 
the beds of the vicinity can be obtained, and Dr. 
Troost was kind enough to accompany me there. 
This ridge seems to be an outline of the ancient 
surface of the country before it was lowered by 
the removal of so many strata, and rises con- 
spicuously above the level of Nashville, with a 
H 



strong bed of argillaceous sandstone at the top. 
The three principal beds of which it consists, 
superadded to the subjacent strata, including the 
lowest calcareous bed on the Cumberland Riv- 
er, near to Nashville, give the following section 
of this part of the country, consisting of nine dis- 
tinct beds of limestone and sandstone, someiimes 
separated from each other by dull slaty lime- 
stones and other seams of mineral matter. 



Feet 

No. 1. 75 


o 

<! 


A7i argillaceous sandstone, sometimes cher- 
ty, sometimes granular. No organic bod- 
ies in the granular part, but contains en- 
cremites in the calcareous seams towards 
the bottom. This bed reappears in various 
other parts of Tennessee, but has general- 
ly been caried away with many of the 
subordinate beds. Nashville, and a great 
part of the adjacent country, are on tho 
the bare limestone. The ridges towards 
the N.E. are sharp, have abrupt projec- 
tions, and steep declivities ; whilst on tho 
opposite side the slopes are gentle, and 
the crowns of the hills rounded, as though 
a current had retired that way. 


No. 2. 10 


Compact limestone, abounding in fossils 
where it is cherty. Encrinites, trilobites, 
gorgonia antiqua. 


No. 3. 15 


Encrinital limestone. Echinodermata. Tur- 
binolia. Flustra. Spirifers. Alternates 
occasionally with sandstone. The fossil 
bodies sometimes siliceous. 


No. 4. 10 


Slaty clay or shale, often bituminous. This 
bed reappears in other parts of the dis- 
trict : contains reniform masses of sulphu- 
ret of iron. 


No. 5. 8 




Granular sandstone. 


No. 6. 12 


Coarse granular limestone, with a slight 
green chloritic stain. Asterias. Stropho- 
mena rugosa. Calymene Bluraenbachii, 
asapbus platycephalus, pentanierus, cate- 
nipora, ceriopora, <fcc. 


NO. 7. 6 


Argillaceous limestone, with Ixilobites and 
calaniapora, <fcc., separated from No. 6 by 
a partial bed of broken dead shells. 


No. 8. 12 


A tough compact grey limestone. Ortho- 
cera. Conotubularia. Favosites. Tur- 
bo liicarinatus covering whole plates of 
the limestone. 


No. 9. 15 




Granular limestone of a bluish black grey 
colour, when fractured shows reddish 
points. Cherty bodies in cavities. Co- 
notubularia. Favosites. Stroraotopora. 
Accidental minerals, strontian, brown 
spar, zinc, &c., &c. 



A little south from Nashville there is a vein 
of crystalline sulphate of barytes, 10 or 12 feet 
wide, of a yellowish grey colour, in the cavities 
of which well-defined crystals are found. I also 
observed in the vicinity another vein of compact 
sulphate of barytes, traversing Brown's Creek, 
with galena disseminated in it; it is far, there- 
fore, from being improbable that these are indi- 
cations of productive deposits of sulphuret of 
lead. 

Of all these fossils and minerals I made a very 
good collection, besides adding greatly to my 
collection of unios, of the most beautiful varie- 
ties of which the Cumberland River contains a 
surprising abundance. This molluscous animal 
delights in the rivers that flow through a calca- 
reous country, and certainly flourishes more in 
the streams that empty into the Gulf of Mexico 
than in those that flovv into the Atlantic. This 
predilection of theirs is a fact worth inquiring 
into. Whether it be the effect of the abundance 
of calcareous matter, the softness of the climate, 
or to their being direct congeners to the unios 
which inhabit the Mexican and South American 
rivers, the fact is now well ascertained that very 
few of the beautiful varieties which live in the 
Western waters are found in the Atlantic streams 



58 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA 



and it appears that where they are mixed to- 
gether, it is generally at the heads of great riv- 
ers flowing in contrary directions, which, at 
periods of high water, occasionally flow into 
each other. But where were all these fresh- 
water bivalves when the whole country was un- 
der the salt ocean 1 If they are a creation since 
the establishment of the existing rivers, may not 
each race of them have been produced where 
they now live, and their various appearance be 
the consequence of an adaptation to the circum- 
rstances which influence their structure 1 

On the 4th of October, having despatched all 
my collections in casks to New Orleans, to be 
(brwarded to New York, and taken places in the 
stage-coach for Louisville in Kentucky, I called 
upon my various friends at Nashville lo thank 
them for the very kind attentions we had receiv- 
ed, and to bid them adieu. I had received very 
pleasing impressions both of the inhabitants and 
the place, and was glad that I had visited it. At 
the inn where we staid we led a very quiet life ; 
they soon ceased to stare at our bringing rocks 
and shells home, and let us do just as we pleas- 
ed. Having become a little accustomed to dirt, 
too, the sight of it was not so distressing as it 
xised to be. The table was pretty good: I sel- 
dom dined at it, but the people very obligingly 
gave me something (o eat at my own hours, and 
I expressed my satisfaction to them on paying 
Illy bill. 



CHAPTER XV. 

Leave Nashville— The Barrens of Kentucky — The Mam- 
moth Cave — First View of the Oliio River— Arrival at 
Louisville — Falls of the Ohio— Henry Clay, his great 
popularity— Captain JacX of the Citizen Steamer, a most 
catawampous Navigator— Public indifference to the loss 
of Life in new Countries — Explanation of "a Sin to 
Crockett." 

At one o'clock a.m., October 5th, we bade 
adieu to Nashville, and after proceeding about 
fifteen miles north of the Cumberlandrthe coim- 
try began to rise rapidly. At the dawn of day 
the stage-coach going very slowly up hill, I glad- 
ly got out and walked, and when we had reached 
t'he""summit of the plateau, found we were upon 
beds of limestone bearing small fan-shaped sul- 
cated impressions resembling others I had seen 
near Sparta, and which appeared to have been 
made by marine fuci. For some distance the 
road passed through a valley formed by chains of 
Kiwbs, as they are called here, which are calca- 
reous hummocks somewhat resembling those in 
the country betwixt Kingston and the Cumber- 
land mountains. The districts here are of a 
secondary quality, and the Kentucky people call 
them Barrens, because they are not as fertile as 
the rich low lands which are occupied by the 
first .settlers. In this they imitate the Dutch peo- 
ple who settled the fertile bottoms of the Mohawk 
river in the State of New York in the middle of 
the seventeenth century. A Dutchman would 
say he had so many morgens of land, and a mile 
of berg ; but he never would dignify the hills with 
the name of land. These barrens, however, have 
tolerably good timber upon them, and when the 
population of the State renders it necessary to 
occupy them, they will be found to be good sec- 
ondary soils, forinmany parts of them I saw good 
tobacco and corn growing. At present it is an 
uninteresting country, not broken up enough lor 
a geologist, and the settlers are so poor and slov- 
enly that, with very few exceptions, there is no- 
thing but dirt to be seen in the taverns; so that, 



of course, there is nothing like comfort to be ob- 
tained in theiTi. There was always some dinner 
provided for the stage-coach, but it was impossi- 
ble to sit down to such miserable stuff, and I 
found it a betier plan to wander and look about, 
and use my increased appetite as a sauce to the 
bad suppers we got. We found the people, how- 
ever, civil and obliging; they are cut off' from 
every source of improvement, and seem content- 
ed with the comfortless condition they exist in, 
because they know no better. We arrived at the 
Bowling Green at night, where there is a tavern 
of some pretensions, and here I got a wretched 
bed to lie down upon for a few hours. In the 
morning we started again, and crossed the Big 
Barren, an extensive and important tributary of 
Green River, which traverses the western part of 
Kentucky and empties itself inio the Ohio. We 
breakfasted at a Mr. Bell's, the nearest inn, I be- 
lieve, lo the Mammoth Cave, about the great ex- 
tent of which much has been said. Its mouth is 
in a valley of horizontal limestone, not far from 
Green River, and, like most caves of great magni- 
tude, such as that of Carinthia near Laybach, St. 
Michael's at Gibraltar, and the Helderberg in the 
State of New York, all of which I have visited, 
is composed of numerous galleries and branches, 
presenting occasionally vaulted domes, pools of 
water, deep pits, with depending stalactites and 
other calcareous minerals. One of the domes of 
this cave is said to be 120 feet high, and from 
the great extent of the place where it rises, it has 
been appropriately enough called the Temple. I 
was told that the cave extends two miles from 
its mouth, and that the length of all the galleries 
taken together exceeds seven miles; so that it 
must be a severe day's work to any one who 
would undertake to visit every known part of it. 
Nitrous earth is found here in great quantities, 
and the cave must be a surprising curiosity to 
those who have never visited such places. We 
had no time to go there, and very little inclina- 
tion to delay the progressof our journey, time be- 
ginning to be precious. We were informed, how- 
ever, that the mouth of the cave was the source 
of some revenue to the proprietor who owned 
the land, and that he was extremely averse to any 
one taking a plan of it, lest a shaft should be sunk 
into it in another part and an opposition portal 
set up. These caves appear to be very numer- 
ous in this part of Kentucky. What are called 
sink-holes are constantly to be seen on the surface 
of the land. These are circular depressions in 
the form of reversed cones, sometimes 25 feet 
deep; they appear to be sections of cavities in 
the limesl;one, and ^frequently lead to a cave. I 
observed a very ingenious use which sotne of the 
farmers had made of them. If there is an orifice 
at the bottom they cover it well over, and then 
plastering the whole with clay the sink-hole be- 
comes an excellent pond of water for their cattle 
and for domestic uses. The soil in this part of 
the country is sometimes very red, and I hav^ 
frequently had water, after rain, brought to m& 
to wash with so muddy and red that I could not 
use it. The country-people, however, are so ac- 
customed to the water in this state that they do 
not object to it. 

We crossed Green River, a pretty stream re- 
semblins Caney Fork in Tennessee, at Mum- 
ford's Ville, a singularly shabby looking place, 
notwitdstanding its fine name. Towards even- 
ing we met the Tennessee race-horses on theii 
return from the Louisville races, where they had 
triumphed over the Kentucky horses, to the great 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



59 



mortification of the Kentuckians. At Elizabeth 
Town, a pretty thriving place, where we arrived 
alter sunset, we got a comfortable supper at a 
tolerabl}' good house, and resumed our journey 
at midnight amidst torrents of rain. At length, 
towards morning, we began to descend the great 
table-land we had so long been crossing, and 
we're evidently approaching some valley where 
the general drainage of the country was carried 
on ; thQ land became flatter and more fertile, the 
forests exceedingly thick, and the trees of such 
great magnitude in comparison with those we had 
left behind that without seeing the famous Ohio 
River we were quite sure we were upon the al- 
luvial deposit adjacent to it. When we were 
least thinking of it we came to a clearing, and 
an immense river appeared before us. " That 
must be the Ohio !" was our mutual exclama- 
tion, and so it was, just where Salt River emp- 
ties into it. I was perfectly delighted with this 
magnificent stream, and ample as was its volume, 
could not but think of what it was in ancient 
times when it covered all the rich flat land we 
iiad passed over on its south side for the last two 
miles. Nothing can be more lertile and beauti- 
ful than this land, which, in every part, is cov- 
ered wiih noble trees. 

We entered Louisville at one p. m., by way of 
the race-course, which .seems to be well laid out, 
•and is kept up wiih much care. At the City 
Hotel we found excellent accommodations, equal 
in manyparticular.-^to those in the Atlantic cities. 
Certainly it is a very great luxury to repose a 
day or two in one of these good inns after so 
much suffering for want of food and rest; and 
here, besides other comforts, we not only found 
a table abundantly supplied, but things to cor- 
respond in a manner that would keep any criti- 
cal epicure in good humour. 

Louisville is a well laid-out town, advanta- 
geously placed on ihe south bank of the Ohio, 
and accessible to the portly steamers that con- 
stantly resort to it. It has three wide streets par- 
allel to the river, each of them -80 feet broad. 
The principal of these is Main Street, which is 
quite a busy place, and nearly as much built up, 
as I remember Broadway, the principal street of 
the now populous city of New York, to have 
been in 1806. These streets are crossed at right 
angles by other streets leading into the country. 
The town fronts what are called the "Falls of 
the Ohio," an extensive rapid about two miles 
long, with a fall in the bed of the river of about 
twelve feet to the mile. To avoid these falls and 
make the navigation continuous, a canal has 
been constructed on the south side near to the 
city from the western termination at Portland to 
deep water near the town. This is a costly 
work, and the lock at the west end for admitting 
steamers is very capacious. The bed of the 
Ohio, comprehending the widest part of the falls, 
is about one mile and a half across, and, most 
fortimately for me, the river was unusually low 
at this time, so that about three quarters of a 
mile of the bed of the river was quite bare and 
dry, and I could walk about in every direction on 
the flat limestone beds, which abounded with fos- 
sils. The channel of the river when the water 
is so low is near the north bank, on the shore of 
the State of Indiana, and at such times you can 
walk with great security to a few islands which 
are between it and the city. One half of one of 
these islands was carried away in the spring of 
this year to the base, and a beautiful bed of en- 
crinites became thus uncovered. Near to an- 



other of these islands some men were engaged in 
a limestone quarry for the use of the city, and as 
the rock peeled off in seams of from eight to 
twelve inches, it disclosed a surprising abun- 
dance of rare fossils, many of which 1 had never 
seen before, and of which I made a rich collec- 
tion. Most of the beds of limestqne are bitumi- 
nous, and the smell in some of them amounts to 
fetor. Petroleum is found in many cavities, and 
I was informed that when they were engaged in 
blasting the beds for constructing the canal, they 
came to places where a gallon of the mineral oil 
could be collected during the twenty-four hours. 
The frequency of this phenomenon has led some 
persons to suppose that all the deposits of bitu- 
minous coal are not of vegetable origin. 

Upon the whole Louisville is a prosperous and 
agreeable place, and appears to be under the 
government of judicious magistrates. The man- 
ner of paving the streets pleased me very much; 
after being well graduated, seams of limestone 
from the Ohio are set upon their edges close to 
each other, and are then covered with the mac- 
adamised metal. The place, however, is not at 
all times equally active, its business being much 
influenced by the state of the water: when it has 
rained in the upper country and the river rises, 
everything is life and bustle, and the people are 
as active as the Egyptians when the Nile is on. 
the increa.se; steamers are immediately put in 
motion, and travellers are moving in every di- 
rection. Large steamers of 500 tons burthen are 
constantly arriving and departing. I visited one of 
this class called 'The Mediterranean,' which was 
fitted out in a very convenient and handsome man- 
ner. Families in these boats can have good state 
cabins to themselves, and are furnished with an 
abundant and well-dressed table. Wine, spirits, 
bottled porter, ale, &c., are sold by the steward ; 
so that nothing is wanting to mitigate the tediuin 
of a long voyage to New Orleans or any other 
place. Besides the first class of passengers the 
steamers receive a great quantity of merchan- 
dise, and many passengers of the lower classes, 
who are entirely separated from the others and 
who find their own provisions. When the wa- 
ter is low, few of the large steamers venture 
above the falls, as they are apt to run aground 
on the shoals, and remain there a long time. 

The Kentuckians are an enteprising, indus- 
trious, and united people; they inhabit a beau- 
tiful country, and cultivate a generous soil. 
With a magnificent river upon their frontier, 
that can convey their tobacco, pork, corn, and 
their other various productions, to every part of 
the earth, they seem to have all the elements 
within themselves of permanent prosperity. The 
people, too, do not appear to have been demor;- 
alised by low demagogues to the extent that they 
have been in someof the other States, and hence 
are not so much under their influence, but rather 
listen to the precepts and imitate the examples of 
their superiors. Of these the acknowledged 
leader is Henry Clay: his name, which is so 
well known through the United States, operates 
like a talisman whenever it is mentioned in Ken- 
tucky. There is not a man in the State but is 
proud that Mr. Clay is a Kentuckian. Indeed, 
identified as all his interests are with the State ; 
being the most extensive farmer, the most spir- 
ited improver of all the breeds of cattle, horses, 
and mules, the most affable of men to all classes, 
having an established reputation for utidaunted 
personal courage, and never having been known 
to do a mean action either in his public or pri- 



TRAVELS IN AEERICA. 



vate capacity, whilst during his long political 
career he has been conspicuous above almost all 
his lellow-cilizens for active and shining talents; 
it is not surprising that his character should 
have made an impression upon the people, and 
that they should by their conduct acknowledge 
the advantages they derive from their relation 
to so eminent a person. What a blessing would 
it be to this great republic if its people, turning 
a deaf ear to selfish demagogues, would but con- 
sent to receive, even if it were but for one pres- 
idential term, so much permanent benefit as 
they would derive from his great experience, his 
manly virtues, and honourable consistency ! 

The weather having set in very rainy, and 
being fatigued and disgusted with stage-coach 
journeys in these unsettled countries, I turned 
my attention to a trip by water to St. Louis, in 
the State of Missouri. There was a very small 
steamer called the Citizen, which was lying at 
the western end of the canal, commanded by 
Captain Isaac Jack, a native of the State of Mis- 
sissippi. When the water in the river is low, 
these small steamers come into play, and of 
course exact a much higher price than when all 
the boats are running. Caprain Jack's boat had 
a board up by way of advertisement, signifying 
that he was to sail " to-day ;" and as the rain 
made me rather dread the horrid roads which I 
should have lo travel over in a land journey 
across the States of Indiana and Illinois to St. 
Louis, I walked early in the morning to the place 
where the Citizen lay, and went on board of her. 
I found a great many passengers there who had 
slept in the boat ; and knowing what monstrous 
lies the captains of these vessels tell to induce 
passengers to embark with them, I thought I 
would speak with Captain Jack before I engaged 
our berths. Captain Jack, who was breakfast- 
ing in his cabin, had " considerable" of that buc- 
caneering look about him which is common to 
his class on the Mississippi. He seemed in a 
very great hurry, and was surrounded by a num- 
ber of impatient passengers, some of whom had 
embarked merchandise with him with a view of 
being the first to get to St. Louis with their goods. 
The truth was that the captain had always been 
going " to-day" for several days past, but had 
not got off yet. His custom every morning and 
evening was to set " that bl — d bijkr" as he call- 
ed the boiler, a-going to make decoy steam, and 
in this way he had managed to entice various 
passengers to send their luggage on board. They 
soon found out the trick after they had got there, 
but as the wharf was three miles from Louisville, 
and Captain Jack's blandishments had still some 
influence with them, they continued with him ; 
and there he kept them dc die in dier/i by all sorts 
of ingenious expedients and mendacious prom- 
ises, not one of which had he the slightest idea 
of keeping. 

Inquiring of him when he intended to start, he 
answered "At four in the afternoon precisely." 
" How many best berths have you to spare 1" 
"There's jist two, and no more." "Will you 
show me the bookT' On looking at it I saw 
that not one-half of the berths were taken, and 
observed, " I did not suppose he would start with 
so many empty berths, but would wait for the 
Eastern slages'to-morrow, and that I should like 
it as well." Now the captain and I should have 
agreed very well on this point if we had been 
alone, but, with the fear of his passengers before 
his eyes, he answered, " No, if you ain't aboard 
at four, you'll not find me here; all won't 



stop me ; I ain't a-going to stop not a minute fhr 
no stages." The passengers, who were attend- 
ing to our conversation, now seemed to take 
courage, and assured me that the boat would 
start punctually at four, for all the cargo was 
taken in. " Why," said Captain Jack, drawing 
up in an attitude of oflended honour, "do you 
think I would tell you a lie about it for double 
the passage-money 1 If I would, I w-ish I may 
be etarnally blown I know whare." I was now 
quite sure he did dot intend to go ; but hoping to 
out-general him, I said, in a quiet way, " I am 
not a man of business ; I am travelling for pleas- 
ure; two or three days are of no great conse- 
quence. They say the water is rising at Piits- 
burg, and it will be as comfortable for me to 
wait a day or two, as to go now and run upon 
the shoals. If you had been going a couple of 
days hence, it might have suited some of us, for 
yours is a nice-looking boat ;" which, indeed, it; 
was. This rather "stumped" Captain Jack, 
and he left off" swearing by four o'clock, know- 
ing that another steamer was advertised to sail 
immediately after him, and fearing lest he should 
drive me to go to that. He looked piteously at 
me, as much as to say that if we were alone we 
could come to an understanding. But the pas- 
sengers, alarmed at my proposition, now told him 
to a man they would all go ashore if he did not 
go at four. Uttering, therefore, the most astound- 
ing imprecations,* and invoking the most absurd 
horrors upon himself and his steamer, which, if 
he did not keep his word, he first wished at the 
bottomof the Ohio, and then at the bottom of the 
Mississippi, not forgetting to wish himself at the 
bottom ol a much worse place, he turned front 
his passengers, and in a low, winning sort of a 
way, said, " Stranger, if I don't go at four, you 

caii go back to Louisville, I'll be if you 

can't, and that's fair, at any rate." I thought it 
was tolerably so, and we therefore embarked oui^ 
luggage. 

A few minutes before four the " byler" took 
up its part and produced a little steam, and for a 
few minutes there was an appearance of bustle 
on board. Amidst all this,_nobody had seen the 
captain for several hours, and he was now miss- 
ing at the most critical moment. All the an- 
swer we could get from the steward was, that 
" the captain had gone for the pilot." In the 
mean time carts kept coming with goods, which 
were laid on the beach, evidently intended to be 
shipped: amongst these were several small 
casks filled with gunpowder. The hours slipped 
away, and at eight o'clock the passengers were 
furious, for it was too clear that Captain Jack 
had " done" them out of one day more. At half- 
past eight he came on board, with the appear- 
ance of a man overcome with fatigue and anxi- 
ety, swearing lustily that he had not been able 
to find the pilot, but had left word with his wife 
to send him on ; that he was a first-rate pilot, " a 
leetle slow or so at moving abaywt;" but "sar- 
tin it was the most OT^accountablest thing that he 
had disapyrded him so ; howsumdever, he'd be 
here directly." I now became spokesman, and 
ventured to tell Captain Jack that his four o'clock 
had become almost nine, that all his oaths were 
broken, and that it was evident he had never in- 



* An apology would be due to the reader if any specimen 
were detailed, however slight, of the tremendous l)lasphe- 
mies with which men of this class m the Southent States 
interlard their speech. Oaths, which are only explelively 
used by others, with them form the staple commodity of 
language ; and the few innocent words they utter seem al- 
most to La afraid of coming in betwixt the claps of thunder 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



61 



"ended to go, because the beach was covered 
Willi merchandise and gunpowder not yet em- 
li.iiked. To which he promptly answered, that 
■ he warn't a-going to take one single curse's 
vorth of it; and that as to the gunpowder, if we 
thought he was sich a owaccountable fool as to 
like that and ruin his insurance, we didn't know 
liiin ; that it might lie there till all etarnity was 
over for what he cared, for he had ordered his 
people not to touch it." 

The passengers now broke out into a strain of 
general dissatisfaction, which he parried by cur.s- 
ing and swearing against the pilot for "disa^^y^it- 
ing" him, and invoking, with the most unheard- 
of blasphemies, all sorts of evil to befal him if he 
did not go punctually at nine the next morning. 
"And," said I, '= what security have you to offer 
us that you will go in the morning, alter lying in 
the way you have done ] Nobody believes you 
about the pilot; and do you think we are such 
fools as to believe a word you say about any 
thing T' Upon which the fellow said, "Stran- 
ger, if that ain't catamount to saying I'm a liar, 
then I reckon I don't know nothing ;" and, turn- 
ing to the passengers with an impudent leer, add- 
ed, " Gentlemen, it's my interest to give you 
parfict satisfaction, and if I don't go to-morrow 
morning at nine to a minute, I'll treat you all to 
as much wine as you can drink, and that's fair, 

by !" Thus caught, we remained all night 

on board. I rose with the dawn of day, and, go- 
ing to the beach, saw that all the goods were 
gone ; and not doubting but that they had been 
taken on board whilst we were all asleep, I in- 
quired of one of the hands, and he not only con- 
firmed it to me, but showed me where the gun- 
powder was stowed away. 

About six the captain turned out, and said he 
was going to town for the pilot; but the passen- 
gers who had been longest on board, perceiving 
they had no hold upon him at all, were now be- 
come very much incensed, and gathered round 
him. I asked him where the gunpowder was; 
and he immediately answered that he had sent 
it back to Louisville in a waggon, and even na- 
med the merchants he had sent it to. This I 
told him I did not believe one word of; that I 
knew the gunpowder was on board, and it was 
not at all unlikely but that the steamer would be 
blown up. Upon which, in the most deliberate 
snanner, he invoked every sort of perdition upon 
his soul if there was a grain of gunpowder in 
the steamer, and offered to go with any of us and 
examine the whole cargo. Some of the passen- 
gers now said I was carrying the matter too far, 
as he did not dare to carry gunpowder on freight, 
for it was contrary to law, and would make the 
insurance void; and Captain Jack, stepping for- 
wards after the manner of "Ancient Pistol," 
boldly offered to give me a thousand dollars in 
specie for every grain of gunpowder I could find 
on board of her. As this insolent, yet ridiculous 
proposition was a figure not easily matched in 
the great art of browbeating, I determined to 
join issue with the captain here, and to blow him 
up, in the hopes of saving the steamer. I there- 
fore coolly told him that he was an ingenious 
fellow, but that he had made a false move for 
once; i-or I knew that the gunpowder had been 
taken on board by his directions, that it was now 
in the forecastle not far frotn the furnace, that I 
had seen it there within half an hour, and that if 
he and the passengers would go forward with me 
I would show it to them. Captain Jack now 
•was checkmated, and, without denying the fact, 



said, " Stranger, I niver did see sicn a man as 
you are; I swar you beat all creation for contra- 
riness. But, gentlemen, if I don't goat nine to a 
minute, I'll give you leave to set fire to the bl — d 
gunpowder and blow the steamer to ****." 

Leaving his passengers with this extraordina- 
ry alternativ^e, he went ashore to look for more 
freight and passengers; and, following his ex- 
ample, I returned to Louisville to breakfast, sent 
a carriage for our luggage, and the rain abating, 
and the Ohio not rising, determined to be satis- 
fied with the experience I had acquired in rela- 
tion to small steamers and their captains. The 
lies these fellows tell are like custom-house 
oaths with many persons, told in the way of 
business only. Great a liar as Captain Jack 
was, he was said to be an obliging, good fellow. 
As to explosion from gunpowder, or destruction 
from any other cause, they occur with so much 
frequency as to have created a general indiffer- 
ence to accidents of this kind. An explosion 
of the boiler of a steamer called the Banner took 
place about this time on the Mississippi: iive 
persons were killed, and sixteen frightfully scald- 
ed. It was the occasion of a paragraph in the 
newspapers headed " Melancholy Disaster," but 
I never heard it alluded to afterwards. Perhaps 
the accidents are few compared with the great 
number of bad steamers, and worse engineers 
and commanders, on the Mississippi. Any fel- 
low with the slightest knowledge of machin- 
ery sets up for an engineer; no certificate is re- 
quired of his ability, and if he will serve for a 
low price, the lives of the parties on board are 
at once entrusted to him. The steamers go by 
high pressure ; and when the engineer and cap- 
tain are two-thirds drunk — which often happens 
in the small steamers — they drive the steamer 
as fast as she will go, and sometimes load the 
safety-valve to terrify the passengers. All these 
accidents happen from rashness or carelessness. 
Those who go in the small steamers are gener- 
ally poor people emigrating to the western coun- 
try, speculators, gamblers, and people little 
known ; all fatalists to a certain extent; at any 
rate, believing that their chance is as good as 
that of any body else; and when they have mada 
a mistake, it is a matter which concerns very 
few people, and makes little or no impression 
upon others, for human life is not esteemed 
as precious in these wild countries as in com- 
munities where existence is cherished and pam- 
pered. As men advance in civilisation, every 
individual is a link in society, and his life is 
valuable to the rest, who know how to feel and 
compassionate the loss of one of their number. 
Here it does not strike any one as being partic- 
ularly surprising that such people should per- 
ish ; indeed, if the world thought about it at all, 
it would be surprised that they had not perished 
before. Men, too, are rapidly reproduced in this 
country of easy subsistence. Property is risked 
in the same manner, because it is easily acqui- 
red again. Food and clothing are obtained by 
very small exertions, the active men of these 
frontier countries not having, like the individu- 
als of denser communities, any apprehensions 
on that score. They know they have an unoc- 
cupied wilderness before them, with land and 
game to fly to: and as to the wealth which many 
of them are eager to obtain, it is not desired for 
the purpose of placing the happiness of them- 
selves or their families upon a solid foundation, 
but is a prize of which, when drawn, the amount 
is laid out in lottery tickets again, all of which 



62 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



frequently come up blanks. Such men meet re- 
verses in a quieter way than others do who be- 
long to an older stage of society. 

An intelligent person whom I saw at Louis- 
ville told me that he knew a man who had em- 
barked all he had in the world on a flat-bottomed 
boat, and then undertook to conduct the boat, 
■with the aid of three or four men, over the falls 
of the Ohio without a pilot. He could have pro- 
vided a sufficient pilot for si.x; dollars, but he re- 
fused to have one ; and pushing his boat boldly 
into the rapids, it soon got beyond his control, 
was knocked and stove to pieces, every thing 
was lost, and his men and himself saved with 
difficulty. When the people who ran to the 
shore to assist him came up with him, they found 
him looking at the fragments of his boat which 
were dashing about amongst the rapids. All 
was gone, to the last barrel of flour, and to the 
last nail in his boat. It was an incident to have 
made Momus serious for the time; but this fel- 
low, turning to the people, said — 
" Hail Columbia, happy land ! 
If I ain't ruined, I'll be " 

The same gentleman assured me that he was 
once a witness to a similar scene, when the vio- 
lence of the rapids overpowered the persons con- 
ducting another flat boat, tossed it about in a 
frightful manner, and finally driving it into a 
chute of great power, the boat was liierally turn- 
ed a somerset by the eddy. Everything was 
lost, and the owner was extricated from the rap- 
ids with difficuhy. On reaching the shore, and 
seeing the disjecta membra going down stream, 
the first thing he said was, "She's gone to be 

any how; but she made a most almighty 

rear of it, didn't shel" This is the usual way 
in which they use iheir expletives, conceiving it 
gives energy to what they have to say. 

But this kind of brutality, which makes the 
conversation of the lower classes near the Mis- 
sissippi so disgusting, is not always a proof of 
badness of heart, tor I have seen many of them 
very obligingly disposed to be useful'to others. 
The halfhorse, half-alligator race, that was 
brought up from infancy in the arks and flat-bot- 
tomed boats that navigated these western rivers 
before steamers were introduced, are off the 
stage now; but the language of the people is 
.still sufficiently figurative, and sometimes unin- 
telligible. Any magnificent steamer, built upon 
a larger plan than usual, is called "A sin to 
Crockett;" an expression of which I received a 
very roundabout explanation. A well-known 
Tehnessean named Crockett, remarkable for 
marvellous feats and marvellous stories, is sup- 
posed to be so "beat" by this monster, "larger 
than the largest size," that, instead of regarding 
it as a virtue, he regards it as a sin, and, ergo, it 
is " A sm to Crockett." 



CHAPTER XVI. 

Leave Louisville, and take to the Stage-Coach again— Dif- 
ference l)etwixt the Manners of Slave and Free States — 
Vint-eunes in the State of Illinois— Old Race of French 
Canaihaiis there — Beauty of the Prairies — Horizontal 
Coal Se;niis in the banks of the rivers— Grouse— Ancient 
I)ecl of ihp Mississippi seven miles broad— The Town of 
St I.nms iTi the State of Missouri— Col. Smith of the 
British Army—" Running a Negro" explained— Jefferson 
Baraclis, admirable management of a regimental fund— 
"Vuide Poche and Pain Court— A group of thirty Barrows. 

Wb left Louisville, Oct. 13, in the stage-coach, 
inteniiing to pass through the States of Indiana 
and Illinois, on our way to St. Louis, and cross- 



ed the Ohio soon after daylight to New Albany, 
a thriving village on the Indiana shore, five 
miles from the Falls. The country hence rises 
rapidly several hundred feet, and leaves the val- 
ley of the Ohio for elevated barrens, with lime- 
stone knobs, as for as Greenville, where there is 
a pretty level country, resembling the barrens of 
Kentucky, and geologically the same, the valley 
of the Ohio merely intervening. From Louis- 
ville to Paoli, fifty-one miles, is a succession of 
knobs and levels. We crossed the Blue River 
at a desolate place called Fredericsburgh, where 
there is a compact lead-coloured limestone con- 
taining producta. The road was tolerably good, 
the land frequently of the very first quality, and 
the people very civil and obliging. The change 
from a state where slavery exists, which it does 
in Kentucky, though in somewhat a mitigated 
form, to a State with a free population, is obvi- 
ous here. In Indiana you see neat white wom- 
en and their children, with here and there a free 
negro ; and every thing is cleaner and tidier 
than in Tennessee and Kentucky. The mis- 
tress of the house and her daughters wait upoa 
you at table, instead of the huge, fat, frowsy ne- 
gresses that, in the slave States, poison you with 
the effluvium from their skins, when they reach 
over to set any thing on the table. Paoli is a 
poor sort of a place, built on a broad ledge of 
limestone; but the situation is beautiful. They 
have a novaculite, or whetstone, here, which ap- 
pears to be of an excellent quality, and is pro- 
cured at the French Lick Hills, about ten miles 
off. From hence the country is over a rough 
limestone road to the east fork of White River,. 
where the land drops down to a perfect level bot- 
tom, consisting of a deep fertile alluvial soil, a 
great part of which is annually under water. 

This is the eastern tAgQ of the great basin of 
the Mississippi; and along this swampy bottom,, 
loaded with timber, we continued to While Riv- 
er, which we crossed in the ferryboat, and where 
I obtained some unios. From hence we travel- 
led fifteen miles to Vincennes, on a dead but 
well-wooded flat; and on approaching the town 
came to a prairie country. The change was a 
pleasing one: a ridge of sandstone hills skirted 
the plains, and we could perceive a chain of 
lofty mounds upon them, thrown up by the In- 
dians in ancient times, which strongly remind- 
ed me of the tumuli and beacons on the wolds 
of Yorkshire. These mounds seem to have serv- 
ed the double purpose of sepulchres and of look- 
outs, as they command both ihe hills and plains. 
Vincennes is an old French setilement, built upon 
the Wabash River, a fine, slow, pellucid stream, 
which rolls over a sandstone covering strong beds 
of coal, that arefrequently exposed to view in the 
banks. This place, when the French possessed 
it, was called Poste St. Vincent, a name which 
the Americans have corrupted into Vincennes. 
The French familiarly called it Au Poste; and 
the quarter of the town inhabited at present by 
that race is separated from that inhabited by the 
Americans, whose village stores, bad taverns, 
and brick houses, form a singular contrast with 
the humble cabins of the descendants of the an- 
cient French Canadians, who seem to mix very 
little with their intruding neighbours. 

After the conquest of Canada and the peace of 
1763, Colonel Croghan was sent by the British 
government to explore the country adjacent to 
ihe Ohio River, and to conciliate the Indian na- 
tions who had hitherto acted with the French. 
He left Pittsburg with some Indian chiefs, and 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



63 



party of white men, in two bateaux, on the 15th | French Canadians to abbreviate all their names. 

If they were going fn the Arkansan Mountains, 
they would say they were going "Aux Arcs;" 
and thus these highlands have got the modern 
name of "Ozarks" from American travellers. 
"Aux Kaskaskias" the Canadians abbreviated, 
into " Aux Kau ;" and in passing through Illinois 
now you hear of the Okau River — a name, in- 
deed, which has got into the maps. The whole 
country from Vincennes to the Mississippi is a 
dead flat, resembling some of the moors and 
wolds of England, occasionally interrupted with, 
belts of trees, and swamps with swamp timber 
growing in them. These belts of trees at partic- 
ular distances seem to subdivide the general 
prairie; and you hear of the Six-mile Prairie, 
the Twelve-mile Prairie, and one near a small 
settlement called Carlisle is called the Twenty- 
mile Prairie. In other parts of the country you 
see no termination to the prairie on the horizon. 
Frequently the grouse {Tctnw cupido) start up' 
almost under your feet, fine strong birds, but too 
heavy to fly far: of these a good sportsman could 
kill more than he could carry in a couple of 
hours. Deer also frequent these plains. I saw 
none myself; but a passenger on the top of the 
stage-coach saw several whilst I was looking at 
some land-shells. 

After going over 140 miles of this kind of 
country we suddenly came to the edge of this 
prairie land, which was a sort of continuous 
bluff (rontaining flat horizontal seams of coal, 
and descended from it to a lower level of rich 
black alluvial soil. We saw at once that we 
were now upon the ancient bottom of the Mis- 
sissippi River, and that w-e were approaching 
the great stream which drains the immense dis- 
trict of upper country. Across this ancient bot- 
tom* of that once mighty stream we had now 
only six miles to travel before we should reach 
the present channel of the Mississippi, and push- 
ing on after a tedious swampy drive at length 
got a glimpse of the river, which is here not 
quite a mile wide, , nd soon after reached the- 
sleam-boat ferry. Although the weather had 
been sultry all day, with scarce a breath of air 
stirring, we found a breeze approaching to a gale 
on the Mississippi, and in crossmg found the 
water rather rough. Opposite lo us was the city 
of St. Louis, with its churches and their steeples, 
the broad quays coming down to the water at a 
great inclination, the massive warehouses in 
frontof them, and a prodigious numberofsteam- 
ers alongside the quay. Rejoicing that we had 
got to the ext-eme terminus of stage-coaching- 
in safety, we now crossed this nohfe river, ex- 
ceedingly gra'ified with the magnificent sight 
before us; indeed, the spectacle wanted but little 
aid from the i nagmation to make it one of the 
most pleasing we had ever met with. 

On reaching the main street my fancy filled, 
with the history of the peregrinations and adven- 
tures of Father Hennepin, La Sale, ;md other 
early travellers in these regions; and anxious to 
see the descendants of the enierprising Canadians 
who first discovered and settled these shores of 
the Mississippi, I was gnevoi>slv afflicted at the 
common-place appearance of the shops, and the 
want of Fjench names over them. To have 
followed the enterprising Pere Hennepin so far 
merely to find a street full of Reuben Duoliitles 



of May, 1765; and on the 8th of June, when b 
vouacking a few miles below the mouth of the 
Wabash, \vas attacked by a party of eighty 
Kickapoosand Musquattimay Indians, who kill- 
ed five of his party, wounded himself and all the 
others except three, took them prisoners, and 
plundered them. The Indians by forced march- 
es conducted them to this place, where there were 
then about ninety French Canadian families, 
described by Colonel Croghan as an idle, lazy 
people, worse than the Indians. No doubt was 
entertained that these people had instigated the 
Indians to commit this outrage in time of peace, 
for they shared the plunder with the savages, and 
refused to lend any assistance to the unfortunate 
party of Colonel Croghan. I called at the huts 
of several of the Canadians, and as soon as I 
began to speak French was very politely receiv- 
ed, one family ofl^ering me coffee. They seem- 
ed to have no desire to keep up any intercourse 
with the American settlers; and one woman told 
me that they were "si betes ils ne savoient pas 
faire le cale." It was at her cabin I found an 
elderly man, who told me that his father was here 
when Colonel Croghan was brought in a pris- 
oner. I was much interested with the place and 
with these simple people, who seem broken- 
hearted by the presence of the intruders that have 
destroyed both theirgaiety and their importance. 
The diflference betwixt the two races is, that the 
Canadian, not loving work, is always ready for 
play, whilst the American is so industrious that 
he has no time to play. After visiting several 
of them, I went to a tavern in the American pan 
of the town, kept by one Clarke; but this man, 
by his rude manner and his extortions, made us 
glad to get away from the place, so easy is it for 
any disagreeable person to turn the whole cur- 
rent of that kindfeelingone is so happy to enter- 
tain. 

Words cannot do justice to the beauty of the 
prairie we entered upon on crossing the Wa- 
bash into the State of Illinois: it was a sort of 
ocean of land, a few trees only being visible in 
some points of the horizon, as palms are seen in 
the distance on the de.sert plains of Egypt. We 
had now a fine smooth road over ari uniform 
level, were moving through an interesting Indian 
country on a bright sunny day, and were in high 
spirits. On crossing the Embarras, a stream 
which intersects the prairie and flows into the 
Wabash, I saw a superb bed of bituminous coal 
in the bank, on a horizontal level, the extreme 
depth of which was not visible. The whole of 
the oolitic series of beds beins: wanting in the 
United States, the coal-fields of this country are 
generally found on the surface, a circumstance 
which will give the greatest facility for mining 
when coal comes into general use, which it must 
do when fire-wood becomes scarce and dear. In 
many places the coal will only require the sim- 
ple operation of quarrying, a.s" now practised in 
the anthracite beds of the Alleghany Mountains, 
which have been upheaved under circumstances 
almost justifying the opinion, that the coals in 
the western country, those in the mountains, and 
those on the Atlantic, were contemporaneous in 
their origin, and were at one time united in one 
field. 

It is amusing to observe how the American 
settlers are doing their very best to corrupt all 
the French names of places : among.st the rest, 
they have poetically converted the Embarras 
into the Ambrosia. It was the custom of the , 



* The country people call this alluvial strip on the east 
side of the river the Amencnn holtom, from ifshavin? Iieeu, 
before the annexation of Louisiana, the limit of the United 
States. 



61 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



and Jeremiah Cushings painted over the doors 
gave me a sensible chill; but the momeni the 
avaricious looks of the numerous Yankee store- 
keepers, and their stores well fiiletl with Euro- 
pean goods from the Atlantic States, met my 
eyes, all the romance of Canadian cottages, old 
I'rench physiognomies, and crowds of Indians 
walking about, that had been flourishing in my 
imagination, was completely dispelled. I saw 
at once that the everlasting Jonathan had struck 
liis roots deep into the ground, and that the La 
Sales had given way toDoolittle & Co. If any- 
thing was wantmg to bring me to the complete 
practical slate of mind I was approaching, no- 
thing could have been more serviceable than the 
tavern I was directed to, which was in every 
sense inlerior to that at Louisville. 

On arriving there I entered the bar-room, 
which was filled with vagabond idle-looking fel- 
lows, drinking, smoking, and swearing in Amer- 
ican: everything looked as if we had reached 
the terminus of civilisation ; it seemed to be next 
door to the Rocky Mountains, and only one stage 
from where we should find Nature in a perfect 
undress, and in the habit of eating her dinner 
without a knife and fork. I had scarcely ascer- 
tained of the landlord that we could have separ- 
ate bed-rooms when an exceedingly fine gentle- 
jnan, superbly dressed, his jowls covered with 
hair, and a gold watch-guard magnificently 
streaming across his chest, came out from the 
knot of smoking fashionables in the bar-room, 
and with his face beaming with satisfaction, ex- 
tended his right hand most lovingly to me. It 
was " Colonel Smith, of the British army" who 
had formerly served at Waterloo, and whom I 
liad seen at the White Sulphur Springs in Vir- 
ginia. Since 1 had lost sight of this gallant of- 
ficer I had received some interesting information 
respecting him. which left little doulit what regi- 
ment he had served in, a fact that seemed to have 
escaped the Colonel's recollection at the White 
Sulphur. I had met with a Kentuckian at Louis- 
ville whom I had also seen at those springs, and 
he informed me that a few days after I went 
away a disclosure had been made which seemed 
to have had an unfavourable effect upon the 
Colonel's health, for he had suddenly departed to 
try the waters* at the Red Sulphur. 

It seems that amongst other modes of getting 
a livelihood in the Southern States, that of " run- 
ning negroes" is practised by a class of fellows 
who are united in a fraternity for the purpose of 
carrying on the business, and for protecting each 
other in time of dans;er. If one of them falls 
under the notice of the law and is committed to 
take his trial, some of the fraternity benevolent- 
ly contrive, "somehow or other," to get upon the 
jury, or kindly become his bail. To "run a 
negro" it is necessary to have a good understand- 
ing with an intelligent male slave on some plan- 
tation, and if he is a mechanic he is always the 
more valuable. At the time agreed upon the 
slave runs away from his master's premises and 
joins the man who has instigated him to do it; 
they then proceed to some quarter where they are 
not known, and the negro is sold for seven or 
eight hundred dollars, or more, to a new master. 
A few days after the money has been paid, he 
runs away again, and is sold a second time, and 
as oft as the trick can be played with any hope 



* This is a slang expression. These swells generally re- 
main in New Orleans during the winter, and " try the wa- 
ters" during the summer, that is, they go to the watering 
places. 



I of .safety. The negro who does the harlequinade 
part of the mancEuvre has an agreement with his 
friend, in virtue of which he supposes he is to 
receive part of the money ; but the poor devil in 
the end is sure to be cheated, and when he be-, 
comes dangerous to the fraternity is, as I have 
been well assured, first cajoled and put off his 
guard, and then, on crossing some river or reach- 
ing a secret place, shot before he suspects their 
intention, or otherwise made away with. 

A small planter who happened to be at the 
White Sulphur this season, and who had the 
year before purchased a valuable slave that had 
escaped a few days afterwards, advertised him 
very minutely in the newspapers; and it happen- 
ed very oddly that another planter had at the 
same time advertised a slave with the same de- 
scription, but with a different name. This led 
to an interview betwixt the two planters, and 
upon comparing notes they found they had each 
been defrauded by the same identical white man 
and his pretended slave. All their efforts, how- 
ever, to discover this person had hitherto been in 
vain, when one evening the planter who was at 
the White Sulphur going with a friend to the 
gambling-house, suddenly asked a person there 
who that man was 2vilh the gold chain on his 
breast ; he was told it was " Colonel Smith, of the 
British army, who had served at Waterloo." 
Now the planter, although he had not served at 
Waterloo, thought he had a pretty distinct rec- 
ollection of the Colonel's having sold him the 
"runaway negur," and kept his eye constantly 
fixed upon him, a circumstance which sooner or 
later could not fail to attract the attention of the 
Colonel, whose eyes were in the habit of keep- 
ing a pretty sharp look-out; and not liking to be 
stared at, he walked out and was followed by 
the planter and his friend. The night was dark, 
the Colonel had friends on the spot, who, like 
himself, were always prepared to " hop the twig," 
and in half an hour was seated in a gig and 
wending his way through the woods to Lewis- 
burgh. In the morning the story was abroad, 
the Colonel was said to be gone to the Red 
Sulphur, and thither the planter followed him, 
swearing he never would return home until he 
caught him. 

" How de do V said the Colonel — in a drawl 
that was quite affettuoso, — extending his hand 

to me ; " I'm happy to see you, if I ain't I'm ." 

I showed the Colonel how I did without a mo- 
ment's delay by instantly turning my back upon 
him and asking the landlord to step into the pass- 
age with me, where, in a very few minutes, I 
told him all I knew, all I had heard, and all I 
thought of the Colonel. The landlord was a 
prudent man : he saw it would be of no advan- 
tage to him to keep such a fellow in his house, 
and when he went back to the bar-room, merely 
said that the gentleman had told him that two 
Virginia planters were coming on in the stage- 
coach after a man who had " run a negur" upon 
them. Half an hour afterwards the Colonel 
transferred himself to a steamer that he reached 
just as she was casting off from the wharf on her 
way to New Orleans. 

St. Louis is admirably situated on the right 
bank of the Mississippi, which is at least one 
hundred feet higher than the shore on the oppo- 
site side, so that the present channel is on the 
western edge of the ancient bed. The town is 
built on beds of horizontal limestone correspond- 
ing with those of the opposite bluffs of Illinois, 
about seven miles to the east, which distance 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



65 



may be assumed as the breadth of the ancient 
stream. From the edge ot'lhe plateau the ground 
slopes at an angle of 45° to the river, and the 
town is principally built on this slope. The 
street Ironting the river where the lotty ware- 
houses are is called Water Street, and the steam- 
ers and other craft lie at the loot of the quay, 
which Is very steep at low water. The next 
street running parallel to this, and where the 
shops are, is called Main Street. The others 
lead to the country and intersect these at right 
angles; and although the houses and shops are 
small and rather shabby, yet the place is the seat 
of a very active trade, comprehending the Amer- 
ican fur-trade of the far western country. But 
the suburbs of the town contain a great many 
neatly-built and pleasant-looking residences, the 
most conspicuous amongst which is that of Gen- 
eral Ashley, the celebrated fur-irader to the 
Rocky Mountains. Flis residence is a very in- 
teresting one, the ibundalion being laid upon one 
of those ancient Indian mounds which are so nu- 
merous in this, country, and of which there is a 
cluster around him. 

The population of the place is oddly mi.xed up. 
When Louisiana belonged to Spain many Span- 
ish families settled here ; to these the French suc- 
ceeded ; now the Americans have taken root in 
the place, and at this moment it is halt-filled 
"with German emigrants. The Roman Catholic 
religion, as yet, preponderates; but this will not 
last long, lor the Presbyterians are running up 
their Ebenezers very rapidly. Amidst this mot- 
ley population — a part of which on Sunday even- 
ings is singing and praying at the meeting-hou- 
ses, a part dancing, a part playing the guitar, and 
the German part swizzling new-brewed beer, — 
some very respectable and excellent people are 
to be found, tuU of intelligence and kindness. 
General Clarke, the enterprising companion of 
Lewis in the well-known journey of discovery 
to the Rocky Mountains, is a most agreeable 
old gentleman, who lives in a very pleasant man- 
ner, and has got an interesting cabinet of natural 
curiosities which he has picked up in his various 
travels. The French families of Pratte, Chou- 
teau, and others are actively engaged in the com- 
merce of the country, and are people of merit and 
influence. The Chouteaus conduct the atfairs 
of the American Fur Company, and their ware- 
house contains immense quantities of furs trans- 
mitted from the far west, of which I saw and pur- 
chased some interesting specimens. 

The young people of the old French families 
still continue their reunions on a Sunday even- 
ing after the custom of their lively ancestors, and 
have music and a family dance'; but I was in- 
formed by some French ladies that they had 
been cautioned lately to discontinue them, as this 
practice gave offence to the Presbyterian con- 
gregation, and it was not unlikely some mob- 
bing would take place. The Christian example 
of the Presbyterian people of Charlestown, in the 
State of Massachusetts, who lately burnt a Ro- 
man Catholic female seminary and valiantly 
drove the female instructresses into the streets at 
midnight, will, no doubt, produce a salutary ef- 
fect upon many Roman Catholic persons here, 
and dispose them to be serious on a Sunday even- 
ing. 

^During my stay here I drove out to JeflFerson 
Barracks, ten miles from St. Louis, to pay my 
respects to General Atkinson, the commanding- 
officer of the district, with whom I had formerly 
been acquainted. The road oassed throueh the 
I 



French village of Carondelet, which is beauti- 
fully situated on the limestone beds, and com- 
mands a fine view down the Mississippi ; it is a 
poor, poverty-stricken place, containing some in- 
convenient wooden houses, whose inhabitants are 
precisely what they were one hundred years ago, 
not having made the least progress in the useful 
arts. They still use a small badly made cart 
with a meagre horse, or " marche done," as ev- 
erybody calls them in ridicule, and appear not to 
have one earthly comfort in their houses. In old 
times this place and ihe village of St. Louis 
were rivals, although the last always held its 
head a little above the other. Whether it was 
that the bakers of St. Louis sold shorter loaves 
than usual, or would not give credit to their 
neighbours for what they wanted to buy, the peo- 
ple of Carondelet nicknamed the ^lace "Pain- 
Court." In return the people of St. Louis nick- 
named Carondelet " Vuide Poche." What was 
a joke then is not one now, for the two places are 
called Pain Court and Vide Poche by the lower 
classes upon all occasions. You never hear of 
"un habitant de Carondelet," the term employed 
is " un Vuide Pocheur." So true is this that 
upon one occasion when I was collecting some 
fossils on the shore at this place, I got into con- 
versation with a French boy about twelve years 
old, and asked him purposely the name of his 
village, when he answered," En Anglais on 
I'appelle Carondelet, mais en Francjais on I'ap- 
pelle Vuide Poche." 

Jefferson Barracks are well built and charm- 
ingly situated upon a bold bluff on the right bank 
of the Mississippi, with a gentle slope, occasion- 
ally studded with trees, going down to the river. 
The Gth regiment of U. S. infantry, now in gar- 
rison here, has excellent quarters, and the oflicers 
and their families find this a pleasant residence, 
being in a salubrious country adorned with fine 
woodlands and abounding in game at no great 
distance. The post fund of this regiment appears 
to be well managed; the library belonging to it 
contains about 3000 volumes, besides numerous 
public papers and periodicals ; they have excel- 
lent schools for the soldiers' children, and other 
useful and benevolent plans for the general ad- 
vantage of the regiment are supported by this 
fund, which depends solely upon contributions 
made within it. At this time the finances are in 
so flourishing a state that I was told they had 
between four and five thousand dollars in cash 
on hand. These facts do great honour to the 
gentlemen who so ably have managed the fund, 
and through whose care such precious advan- 
tages are secured to a regiment often destined to 
pass many years on the distant frontiers far re- 
moved from all society. General Atkinson's 
long residence in the western country has made 
him a perfect master of the economy necessary 
for a military post of this kind, and I certainly 
have never seen a frontier garrison which ex- 
celled .Tefferson Barracks for beauty and salu- 
brity of situation, neatness of parade-ground and 
quarters, and all general arrangements for the 
personal comfort of officers and men. The Gen- 
eial received my son and my'~elf in the most cor- 
dial manner, and we had the pleasure of par- 
taking of an excellent dinner at his quarters 
with some American officers who had just re- 
turned from a residence of several years at the 
more distant post of Fort Leavenworth on the 
Missouri. 

The succeeding day we made an excursion 
on foot to the coal-field in the bluffs of Illinois, 



66 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



which we had passed over in our way to St. 
Louis. The seam which at present supplies St. 
Louis with coal lies horizontally in the blufl's 
about a mile and a half north of the public road 
from Vincennes, and as they are about eighty 
feet in height, they nearly correspond with the 
plateau on which St. Louis is built. The coal 
lies beneath a bed of light grey limestone, from 
which I procured some tine producta and tere- 
bratula; in the shale which formed the roof of 
the seam I could find no fossil-plants, but abun- 
dance of sulphuret of iron. The seam measured 
eight feet thick to the ground, and probably went 
down several feet i'arther, so that it was not pos- 
sible to ascertain whether it rested upon clay or 
not. To obtain the best quality of the coal they 
have nothing towdo but to make drifts into the 
bluff of from twenty to one hundred feet, take it 
out in large blocks, and cart it over a wretched 
road in the swamp to St. Louis, where the in- 
habitants pay from 14 to 16 cents the bushel lor 
it. The carts, drawn by oxen, can carry in dry 
weather — when the swamp is most passable — 
1400 lbs. 1 suggested to the contractors to con- 
struct a cheap railroad for the six miles, which 
would not cost more than 3500 dollars a-mile, 
and would reduce the cost of transportation at 
least two-ihirds. The excavation of the coal is 
carried on in a slovenly manner; the roof of the 
seam is often not secured at all, and, of course, 
is continually falling down, so that when they 
have run their drift as far as they dare— and 'I 
did not see one exceeding a hundred feet in 
length — they abandon it and go to another place. 
Coal is also found on the opposite side of the 
Mississippi, about four or five miles west of St. 
Louis; and as we had seen seams of the same 
kind near the surface a little west of Vincennes, 
and were continually observing them in our 
progress through the State of Illinois to these 
bluffs, besides being told that they are found for 
great distances north and south in the ancient 
banks of the Mississippi, it would seem that all 
these seams are but sections of one great con- 
temporaneous deposit underlying all this part of 
the prairie country, and which, perhaps, at some 
ancient period, was connected with the coal- 
fields betwixt it and the Atlantic — a conjecture 
that would appear extravagant to one who had 
not actually crossed them all. 

Having examined the coal-ground we directed 
our steps to some elevated mounds we had seen 
as we advanced to the Mississippi, and having 
reached them after a good smart walk across 
the plain, were highly gratified with their ap- 
pearance. They were about thirty in number, 
some of them near to each other and others iso- 
lated. Rome were conical, some ohlong, some 
flat at the top, and the larger ones usually had a 
small tumulus connected with them by way of 
projection frotn the side. They were of various 
sizes, but the largest of them was so very strikins: 
an object, that after getting up to the top of a few 
of the others, and remarking that there was a de- 
pression in the surface of the ground near to each 
of them, from whence the materials of which 
they were made were probably excavated, 1 turn- 
ed my attention principally to it. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

A remarlcable Barrow — The MonumPtits of the Ancient Red 
People analogous to those of the Old Races in Europe — 
Probable cause of the diversity in Indian Dialects — A pet- 



rified Forest — Society at St. Louis — More bolting at the- 
Table il'Udte — Fur-trappers of the Rocky Mountains — 
Excellent Markets at St. Louis— Money the real object of 
Life. 

This lofty barrow consists of an oblong tumu- 
lus stretching north and south, the summit of 
which is 115 feel from the ground, with a broad 
terrace round it, at not quite half of its height 
from the base. The width of the oblong across 
at the north end is about 160 feet, and its length 
on the east side is about 350 feet. At the south 
end the width is somewhat abraded, but appears 
at one time to have corresponded to that at the 
other end. From the centre of the terrace anoth- 
er oblong of 50 feet on each side projects. The 
east side of the terrace is 200 feet wide, and its 
front both to the east and west measures 450 
feet. In the rear, at the north, runs the Cahokia 
Creek, which contains some good fish, as J was 
informed, and here a dense woodland commen- 
ces, in which are various other mounds. On 
the west side, and near to the large barrow — 
which the neighbouring people call Monk's- 
Mound — is a smaller one, where some monks of 
La Trappe once fixed their residence when they 
took refuge in this country; but the dwelling in 
which they resided is now levelled with the 
ground, and few remains of it are still visible. I 
walked over the area where these melancholy 
beings resided, of whom some curious stories are 
related. A benevolent lady of St, Louis once 
visited them to offer her services, and was re- 
ceived in profound silence. Finding that her 
offers were promptly declined, and that they 
were not disposed to hold any communication 
with her, she took her departure, but no sooner 
had she left the door than one of them took a 
swab and a pail of water, and immediately began 
to scrub the place upon which she had beea 
standing, as if to purify it. These ascetics cul- 
tivated a part of the large mound, and raised 
their vegetables upon it. 

At this time it is in the possession of a me- 
chanic named Hill, who has built a house at the 
top, around which we saw abundance of Indian 
corn, pumpkins, tomatoes, &c. ; for the soil of 
which the mound consists is the rich black mould 
taken from the surface below, which is extremely 
fertile. Mr. Hill laid the foundation of his 
dwelling upon an eminence he found on the 
summit of his elevated territory, and upon dig- 
ging into it, found large human bones, with In- 
dian pottery, stone axes, and tomahawks; from 
whence it would appear that these mounds not 
only contained a sepulchre at their base, but 
have been used for the same purpose in after-^ 
times at the .summit.* The extraordinary di- 
mensions, however, of this mound, seem to war- 
rant the conjecture that they .served various pur- 
poses: for when the adjacent low land was in- 
undated, many families could reside upon it, and 
its great elevation made it an excellent look-out 
for the approach of an enemy. Mrs. Hill told 
me that even the top of the mound was unhealthy 
in the autumnal months, and that she was then 
sufferins; from the malaria of the place. We 
next visited another oblong mound, with an em- 
inence or small tumulus upon it, south of that 
upon which the Trappists dwelt; and if I had 
had time, and had been prepared, I should have 
opened the small tumulus in the expectation of 
deterring some ancient chief, but night was com- 



* I have seen mounds of this kind— although not of this 
i7e — opened, which contained vast quantities of bodies 
iled in layers upon each other. 



TRAVELS IN AAfERI(L4. 



67 



ing on, we had at least six miles to walk, and 
ran some risk of not reaching the Mississippi 
before the last trip of the steam ferry-boat. 

In the coarse of this day we saw upwards of 
sixty mounds large and small, some oblong, some 
conical,'and others quadrangular, like tho#e upon 
the plateau upon the other side of the Mississip- 
pi. From their relative position to each other 
it might seem asifliiey were intended for defence, 
and yet they may be nothing but ancient ceme- 
teries where distinguished chiefs were buried: 
again, from their frequent occurrence on these 
low swampy bottoms, one of their principal uses 
may have been as dry places to resort to during 
the inundations which periodically covered those 
plains with the swollen floods of the river; and 
the broad terrace attached to Monk's Mound 
strengthens this view of the subject, since it ad- 
mitted of being inhabited at any stage of the wa- 
ter. It is plain, however, that they were not ex- 
clusively used as places of resort in times of in- 
undation, since similar ones are frequently found 
upon plateaux of land far above the rise of the 
Mississippi. General Ashley, who perhaps pos- 
sesses more practical information respecting the 
Indians than any other individual, assures me 
that he has found them in every possible situa- 
tion in the remote countries adjacent to the Rocky 
Mountains; so that when we consider that one 
or more skeletons, accompanied with pottery 
and warlike weapons, have been found in all the 
mounds that have been opened, we may at any 
rate reasonably conclude that these structures 
were intended, in their origin, as sepulchres for 
the eminent dead of the aborigines, and were to 
the Indians what the pyramids were to the ancient 
Egyptians, and the barrow to the races that in- 
habited England in times of yore. 

The ingenuity of the human race, before met- 
als came into use, seems generally, and in situ- 
ations the most remote from each other, to have 
been directed to the same ccutrivances ; the an- 
cient British raised the barrow over the chief- 
tain, and placed an earthen vase slightly orna- 
mented near the illustrious dead ; the red Indian 
of North America did exactly the same thing; 
and not only are all the specimens of pottery 
found in these American barrows, which I have 
seen, whether in Tennessee, Missouri, or in the 
museums, made of sand and clay, and freshwa- 
ter shells ground up, but they exactly resemble 
each other in their ornaments and form, and 
scarcely at all differ in the size and pattern. I 
possess many specimens of ancient British and 
American vases, that only differ fro^ each oth- 
er in the ingredients of which they are made. 
In the ancient British barrows the 'stone coffin, 
too, or kistvaen, is composed of six pieces of 
stone, just as the stone coffins spoken of at page 
48, near Sparta, in Tennessee. 

The remarkable diversity of dialects which 
has for a long time existed between the Indian 
tribes that inhabit North America, the rooted 
antipathy that one tribe often cherishes to an- 
other, and some striking differences which are 
to be observed in their customs, are facts which 
have led to the inference with many persons that 
the existing races have hnd a various origin ; 
still their colour, their skulls and physiognomies, 
the close resemblance in their modes of sepul- 
chre wherev^er found, the forms and materials 
of their vases, their mounds, their stone axes,* 



* The stone axe found in the ancient mounds, with a 
groove around it in the place of aueye (which is sometimes 
found in the British barrows) to attach a liandle to, with a 



, arrowheads, and the purposes to which they 
have been applied in all times, .seem — independ- 
ent of their traditions — to form an indestructi- 
ble link betwixt the ancient and existing races 
of Indians, and to prove that these last are but 
generations descended from the first; all these 
natural, artificial, and traditionary evidences 
betraying a connexion which cannot otherwise 
be proved in the case of a savage people who 
have never had any permanent records. 

As to the difference betwixt the dialects, I 
imagine it appears to be greater than it is : few- 
persons have studied the structure of the Indian 
languages, and no one has yet successfully en- 
tered upon the task of showing how human be- 
ings in a state of nature, with no motives, and 
no aid, to improve their oral communications, 
must, when separated into groups or tribes for 
purposes of subsistence, necessarily permit the 
influences of climate, food, and the new objects 
they become familiar with, to effect great chang- 
es in their language. If the Sclavonic, Teuton- 
ic, Gallic, British, and other nations, who are — 
although remotely — descended from a commoa 
stock, no longer understand each other, it is not 
surprising that the red Indians, whom civilisa- 
tion in no shape has ever reached, should speak 
different dialects. Our own language has chang- 
ed in the last four hundred years strangely; 
what changes, therefore, may not have taken 
place during two thousand years perhaps, or 
more, that the red Indians have inhabited North. 
America, and who never have possessed the 
means of even temporarily fixing one of their 
tongues'? These mounds have been supposed 
by some writers to have been erected by a race 
that once passed through the country, and that 
had no blood connexion with the existing peo- 
ple ; but the evidence they furnish of a similar- 
ity of customs and manners does not support that 
opinion. It is true that the present races do not 
appear — as far as I have any information — to 
continue the practice of constructing them, but 
this may be occasioned by the whites having 
gradually possessed themselves of the country, 
and, indeed, the particular race that were in the 
habit of constructing such mounds may haTe 
perished amidst the conflicts in which the Indi- 
ans have always been engaged amongst them- 
selves. 

At General Ashley's I saw the head of an ani- 
mal, which, but for the appearance of a tusk, 
was apparentlv of the genus Cervus, and was 
entirely converted into a siliceous fossil: the left 
jaw had been broken off by a man who wanted 
to see if the brains were petrified. It was found 
near the sources of the Yellow Stone River, a 
tributary of the Rockv Mountains, wJi'ich fm^ 
on the east flank of that great belt. This fossil 
was not found imbedded'm any rocky stratum 
but was lying loose on the ground, and had prob^ 
ably become silicified bv the same process that 
has at some period acted upon a very large scale 
and wnh great intensity in that part of ihe coun- 
try. General Atkinson and other intelligent of- 
ficers, who had examined a singular phenome- 
non there, informed me that upon the west bank 
of the Missouri, a fexv miles below its junction 
with the Yellow Stone, the remains of an ancient 
forest are found, at an elevation of about 300 feet 



th.mg- made of hide or the sinews of some anjma) is the 
same weapon used in our own times by the Indians of the 
West. I saxv- several of them fitte.l with handles attached 
by thongs, which General Clarke had brought from the ftr 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



-•above the river, extending twenty or thir'jfc- miles 
on the open prairie, every tree ol which is now 
a perfect siliceous petrifaction ; the surface of 
the ground being literally covered with broken 
trees, stumps, roots, and fractured branches, con- 
verted into stone, and scattered about in innu- 
merable fragments. Some of the trees were bro- 
ken off close to the root, whilst the trunks of 
others were standing at a height of several feel 
above the surface; one of the stumps was up- 
wards of fifteen leet in circumference. Various 
specimens of these silicified plants have been 
shown to me, and the phenomenon must be ad- 
mitted to be one of the most extraordinary facts 
in the history of mineralogy. 

The fossil which was found in this petrified 
forest exhibited on its right side part of the cra- 
nium of the animal, of which the whole posterior 
pait was wanting. The right orbit, with a cav- 
ity lying obliquely from it, was tolerably perfect, 
as well as the snout, part of which was brolicn 
off. The teeth of the upper jaw were pretty well 
preserved, and consisted of four molars, lour in- 
cisors, and, in a line almost on a level with the 
lower edge of the orbit, were the remains of a 
tusk. On the opposite side of the jaw were a 
corresponding socket and tusk, but the rest of 

' the teeth were unfortunately destroyed by the 
philosopher that wanted to see if the animal's 
brains were petrified. From the edge of the pos- 
terior molar to the tusk a curve is described. 
The osseous structure is otherwise perfect; and 
the whole is converted into siliceous matter, ex- 
cept some calcareous earth in the cavities, which 
somewhat resembled the calcareous fiUings-in 
of the fossils of Montmartre, near Paris. The 
owner was so annoyed by the very unscientific 
treatment which the head had received, that he 
■was loath to trust it to me to make a drawing, 
and so I contented mvself with a hasty sketch 
of it. 

The venerable discoverer. General Clarke, 
made my stay at St. Louis very agreeable to 
me: whenever I had any leisure, I had his mu- 
seum and his pleasant and instructive conversa- 
tion to resort to. His son-in-law. Colonel Kear- 
ney of the U. S. Dragoons, and his lady, were 
also very polite. Mrs. K. is a lovely woman, 
and inherits a great deal of the spirit of enter- 
prise which had distinguished her father. She 
accompanied her husband by land all the way 
through the wilderness from Fort Towson, on 

, Red River, to St. Louis, and lefi; this last place 
to go into winter-quarters with him at the De 
Moine, much higher up the Mississippi. From 
Dr. William Kerr Lane, too, I received the most 
useful and pleasing attentions : nor ought I to 
forget those which were paid to me by some of 
the respectable French inhabitants. On leaving 
Sparta, in Tennessee, iny amusing friend M. 

■ Nidelet, putting a letter in my hand, addressed 

, to his father-in-law, General Pratte, at St. Louis, 
exacted a promise from me that I would deliver 
it in person. 1 did so, and thus became accriilile 
in some of the mo.st respectable French families, 
where I passed many agreeable moments. They 

i. soon found out that I liked their society, and! 

!^ became — what under other circumstances I never 

\ could have been — the confidant of many of their 

I suppressed national feelings. 

; At the tavern where I lodged all was dirt, dis- 
order, and want of system. A pack of ragged 

; young negroes performed the service of cham- 

(1 bermaids and waiters, and did it about as well 

I as a pack of grown monkeys, caught in the Bra- 



zils, would do in three months' teaching. The 
landlord, who to me was always very obliging, 
seemed to have no sort of authority either over 
his servants or his guests. These principally 
consisted of those impudent, smoking, spitting 
shopboys^who are dignified in the United States 
with the appellation of "clerks." I only occa- 
sionally dined there; but it was always the same 
thing. At the ringing of a bell these " clerks" 
rushed in crowds to the table, just as a pack of 
hounds or a drove of swine would to their feed. 
I found it most prudent to wait a short time, for 
in eight minutes they had gobbled everything 
up, and had again rushed out to take a glass of 
swipes, a cigar, and go to their "stores." One 
of the intolerable evils of practical equality is, 
the obliging clean people to herd with dirty ones. 
The landlord, however, seeing my way of doing 
things, used generally to send me something hot 
and conifortable to eat at my leisure. But an- 
other class of men was not so exceptionable : 
every now and then, extraordinary-looking, 
coarse-dressed, weather-worn, dried-up, queer 
animals — travellers like myself— would come in, 
and sitting down without a word to anybody, 
would commence the most astounding voracious 
performances. Fish, pork, beef, sausages, pud- 
dings,, all on the same plate together at the same 
time, and bolted down with the most stoic indif- 
ference as to which the knife and fork laid hold 
of first. It was like Potier's song — 

" Deux canards s'en vont promenant, 
Le premier va au devant." 

These men often looked like very indifferent 
company, but in fact were much more estimable 
persons than most of those at the table who were 
better dressed. The American swell is easily 
known, for he is always a preposterous fine gen- 
tleman, but these men belonged to a class that 
possessed a great deal of that kind of information 
I was anxious to possess myself of. They were 
trappers f rem the Rocky Mountains. Some oi' them 
had been many years in the remote countries of 
the west, sometimes trapping beaver on their 
own account, at other limes acting as agents 
and servants to others. They were generally 
modest, unpretending men, and appeared uncon- 
scious that they were objects of the liveliest in- 
terest to me. I formed an acquaintance with 
several of them who had frequently traversed the 
plains west of the Rocky Mountains, and par- 
ticularly with two who had wintered with the 
Spaniards on the shores of California, and had 
resided some time both at Monterey and the 
magnificent §ay of S. Francisco. 

The adventures of some of these trappers were 
very striking; accustomed to penetrate into the 
most secret haunts of the mountains near the 
sources of the streams that flow into the North 
Pacific, they would set their beaver traps at 
night, visit them early in the morning, and skulk 
away during the daytime to avoid those parties 
of the Blackfeet, Crow, and Eutaw Indians, 
which were scouring the country to punish 
these intruders into their native hunting-grounds. 
Many were the fights they had had with them, 
with the loss of one or more of their companions. 
One of these men had a broad scar on his fore- 
head, made by an arrow which a Blackfeet In- 
dian, who had been brought down by a rifle and 
refused to receive quarter, fired iiito his face 
from the ground. The point fastened itself in 
his skull, and was extricated with difficulty. 

These men, from their own account, seldom 
save anything from their hard- won earnings; 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



69 



■when they have anything beforehand they spend 
it freely, or give it away, and when the annual 
supplies come from St. Louis, they are charged 
such immense protits, that they are always in 
debt to the traders, whose policy it is to keep 
them in the fur country, that they may not have 
the trouble and expense of sending more out. 
The consequence is, that the country is over- 
trapped, and the destruction of animals is so 
great, that subsistence will ere long be obtained 
with difhculty. This state of things is already 
approaching: the American Fur Company no 
longer derives the great profits it once did, and 
will probably be dissolved rather than expend 
their capital in an unproductive trade. When 
that state of things arrives, many of the trappers 
will combine and establish themselves at some 
point or points in the territory of the Columbia, 
probably in the Valley of the Wallamet, a trib- 
utary ot the Columbia, where the soil is some- 
what fertile, the situation healthy, and where a 
greater amenity of climate prevails. All these 
men concur in speaking with great admiration 
of the softness of the winter climate in some of 
the valleys of the Columbia territory, and the 
very early state of the spring there, which, no 
doubt, is to be attributed to the western breezes 
bringing to that coast the mild temperature of 
the ocean which they traverse. 

Of the British or Hudson's Bay Fur Company 
these men always spoke with respect; they said 
it was a good thing to be in their employment, 
because it was steady and constant, and did 
not admit of people doing as they pleased, and 
creating so much confusion : they observed to 
me that the people who were connected with 
them were not charged unreasonable profits for 
supplies, and were provided for when they were 
old: the fur trade, they remarked, would never 
flag with them, because they had all the north 
country in their own hands, and had secured the 
best trappers even in the southern parts: some 
of them gave it as their opinion that the Ameri- 
can Fur Companies could not contend with them, 
and would be driven out of the country by supe- 
rior capital and untiring energy; so that in the 
end the whole country would be in their hands, 
and that they would keep it, for they " acted" so 
kindly and liberally to the Blackfeet, the Crows, 
and all the Indians on the Columbia, that they 
would always side with the British, "and it 
would never be worth while for the Americans 
to try to root 'em out, for they couldn't do it." 

These appeared to me to be sensible observa- 
tions, and under such circumstances the terri- 
tory on the Columbia would not seem to war- 
rant any great eflTort on the part of the United 
States to establish a colony in so remote a situ- 
ation; one, indeed, which would have to be kept 
up at an enormous expense, without any great 
object in view, and without any great advantage 
to be obtained by it. It is very clear that the 
Hudson's Bay Company, which has such nu- 
merous posts and important agricultural settle- 
ments in the Columbia territory, are the real and 
only colonists who can maintain themselves 
there. No doubt that territory, in an agricultural 
point of view, has been extravagantly over-rated ; 
but that the British Government will ever sur- 
render the mouth of the Columbia river, through 
which it has an uninterrupted communication 
from Q,uebec to China, is highly improbable; 
quite as much so as that the United States will 
commence an expensive career of colonization, 
which, although occurring naturally to England 



from her limited home, the industry, wealth, and 
increase of her population, would seem to be 
very unwise on the part of a country which ap- 
pears called upon by what is due to its own 
prosperity to curtail its possessions rather than 
to increase them. 

The markets of St. Louis are full of excellent 
things ; game of every kind is in profusion, and 
extremely cheap; but, unfortunately, these good 
things are always irretrievably ruined in the 
cooking at our hotel. At General Clarke's, how- 
ever, I ate some \vild ducks very nicely dressed, 
and which I thought as tender and high flavoured 
as the famous canvass-back ducks of the Susque- 
hannah. In my walks 1 liequently met sportsmen 
coming home loaded with wild fowl, the splendid 
wood-duck {Ajias sponsa), with his magnificent 
crest, and those beautiful teals with blue {Anas 
discors) and green wings. As to venison I have 
seen very little of it, and it has always been so 
badly dressed wherever I have met with it, that 
I have generally thought it the worst meat at ta- 
ble. The fish of these waters is very good, es- 
pecially the catfish (PiMc/orf7is?), which are rich. , 
and palatable without sauce of any kind. The . 
country, indeed, abounds with what is good, but \:[ 
the majority of the people do not seem to care ,,"; 
how they live, provided it does not interfere with 'i' 
the grand exclusive object of their existence, ma- ■]{ 
king money. Wherever I go — with Ihe fewest ■ 
exceptions — this is the all-prevailing passion. 
The word money seems to stand as the repre- 
sentative of the word " happiness" of other coun- 
tries. In other lands we see rank, distinction 
in society, scientific and literary acquirements, ! 
with the'other elevating objects that embellish. I 
and dignify human lile, pursued by great num- I 
bers with constancy and ardour; but here all ; 
other avenues to advancement, except the golden ' 
one, seem nearly untrod — the shortest cut, coute 
qui coutc, to that which leads to ready money. 
being the favourite one. Where this sordid 
passion stifles the generous ones, a rapacious > 
selfishness is sure to establish itself; men cease 
to act for the general welfare, and society at 
length resolves itself into a community, the great 
object of every individual of which is to grasp 
as much as will last as long as himself 

In every large town of the United States 
where I have been, I have, it is true, found ami- 
able and delightful exceptions to this general de- 
feet in the American character ; but such is the 
force of evil example, that hereafter it is to be' 
apprehended they may stand about in the same i 
relation to the whole that the planets do to the'; 
fixed stars. The oflicers of the United States' : 
army, however, appear strikingly exempted from ' 
this base inclination of sacrificing everything to 
money; these gentlemen are much better edu- 
cated than they used to be, and appear to have 
neither the opportunity nor the inclination to de- 
grade the miutary prestige. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

Purchase a Waggon — Old French Town of St. Charles on 
the Missouri— Linden Grove— Origin of the Mounds — 
Customs of the Osage Indians. 

Before we left St. Louis I purchased a nice| 
little waggon called a Dearborn, and a young i 
horse that had been sired by one of the wild ' 
prairie horses ; he was a very elegant animal.i 
good-tempered, appeared sound, and I named, 
him Missouri. We were now at the end of all 



70 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



3tage-coach travelling, and as I was desirous 
of proceeding in a southern direction as far as 
the frontier of Mexico, I thouglit it was hetter 
to procure a conveyance of this sort than to 
purchase horses : with it we could carry our 
luggage, our specimens, and some provisions ; 
■when one of us was waliving the other could 
drive, and we could sleep under it at night into 
the bargain. It gave us great pleasure to think 
■we should be quite independent with this little 
equipage, should have no smoking and spitting 
passengers, no cursing and swearing drivers, 
and nobody to care, about but ourselves and 
Missouri, whose beautiful grey skin, arched 
neck, full eye, and ample tail attracted great 
attention. 

Our first excursion with him was to the old 
French town of St. Charles, on the Missouri. 
The road over the prairie was excellent ; we 
passed a race-course, and a tolerable tavern 
four miles from St. Louis, where the land was 
so good that 85 dollars an acre was asked for it. 
Farther on the plain was agreeably diversified 
by woodland and small valleys, and game seem- 
ed to be plentiful, for we passed numerous cov- 
eys of fine quails, so tame that they would scarce 
get out of our way. We came also within 
eighty yards of three beautiful deer, in fine con- 
dition ; they were amusing themselves quietly 
in the middle of the road, and, as we drew 
nearer, bounded gracefully into the thicket. At 
fifteen miles from St. Louis we came to Owen's 
station, a poor village in a fertile tract of land 
•which was first settled when the Spaniards 
possessed the country : from hence the coun- 
try fell gradually towards the valley of the Mis- 
souri, in the way to which we passed some beds 
of horizontal limestone which a stream had un- 
covered, and then came to a rich black bottom 
about two miles broad, which, like that adjoin- 
ing the Mississippi, formed part of the ancient 
b.d of the river when its waters were more vo- 
luminious. We saw the north bank of the Mis- 
souri before we saw the river itself, and at length 
came suddenly upon it. When the waters are 
high, it would seem, from the muddy margin, 
to be about 4000 feet wide ; but at this time it 
was unusually low, and in the deepest part the 
stream did not exceed fifteen feet in depth, hav- 
ing a clayey sluggish appearance. 

The south bank consists of strata of clay and 
loam, and is constantly wearing away ; but the 
north bank is a gentle slope, exhibiting various 
beds of fossiliferous limestone, probably the 
equivalent of the carboniferous limestone of 
England. There are some circumstances con- 
nected with the alluvial banks of the Missouri 
and Mississippi which deserve notice. The soil 
on the south bank of the Missouri extended, 
■within the recollection of individuals now liv- 
ing, so much farther into the river as to have 
conlracted the channel — as I was informed— to 
three-fourths of the present width ; perhaps this 
may be exaggerated, but a person whose house 
■we passed about one hundred yards from the 
eiJge of the present bank has been obliged to 
remove it three times, and it appeared to me 
that he would have to repeat the operation 
within the next ten years. The same wearing 
away of the alluvial bank on the east side of 
the Mississippi, opposite to St. Louis, is going 
on at the same rate. There are persons who 



remember when voices could be heard across 
that river, which is not the case at present. If 
this is permitted to go on long, these rivers will 
carry away the alluvial banks, will re-establish 
their dominion over the width of the ancient 
channel, and the present volume of water 
spreading itself over so great an increase ol 
breadth, the navigation will be destroyed, as it 
is in the Hudson River, near to the city of Al- 
bany. This would be a great misfortune to the 
city of St. Louis, and it ought to be averted in 
time. 

St. Charles is a poor tatterdemalion-looking 
place, presenting a long street with some old 
French houses, and shabby brick stores, where 
a few American shopkeepers are wasting away 
their lives. The tavern we put up at was in 
keeping with the rest, the bed-room we were 
shown into being so dirty and comfortless that 
we gave up all hope of a good night's rest. We 
therefore walked into the country about a mile 
and a half, to a Major Sibley's, to whom I had 
a letter. His villa, which is called Linden 
Grove, is prettily situated on the plateau about 
a mile back from the river, where the country 
undulates gracefully, and has fine woodlands. 
Everything looked rural and nice about the 
house, the trees were cleared away with taste, 
and there was an extensive garden bearing 
marks of unusual care. The Major received us 
very cordially, and I soon discovered that he 
was an intelligent and agreeable person. If he 
had asked us to bivouac in his neat garden, we 
should have been grateful ; but he pressed us 
so earnestly to stay all night with him, offering 
the great luxury of separate bed-rooms, that I 
really thought him one of the most enlightened 
men I had met with in the western country. 

He had resided many years amongst the west- 
ern Indians as agent of the United States, and 
had been one of the commissioners appointed 
to lay out the traders' great road to Santa Fe, 
in Mexico. We soon got into conversation 
about the lofty mounds I had seen, when he 
stated that an ancient chief of the Osage In- 
dians (corrupted by the Ft^ench from Whashash) 
informed him whilst he was a resident amongst 
them, that a large conical mound, which he. 
Major Sibley, was in the habit of seeing every 
day whilst he resided amongst them, was con- 
structed when he was a boy. That a chief of 
his nation, who was a most distinguished war- 
rior, and greatly beloved by the Indians, and 
who was called Jean Defoe by the French, un- 
expectedly died whilst all the men of his tribe 
were hunting in a distant country. His friends 
buried him in the usual manner, with his weap- 
ons, his earthen pot, and the usual accompani- 
ments, and raised a small mound over his re- 
mains. When the nation returned from the 
hunt, this mound was enlarged at intervals, ev- 
ery man assisting to carry materials, and thus 
the accumulation of earth went on for a long 
period until it reached its present height, when 
they dressed it off at the top to a conical form. 
The old chief farther said that he had been in- 
formed and believed, that all the mounds had a 
similar origin ; and that the tradition had been 
steadily transmitted down from their ancestors, 
that the Whashash had originally emigrated 
from the east in great numbers, the population 
being too dense for their hunting-grounds : he 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



71 



described Ihe forks of the Alleghany and Mo- 
nonghatiela rivers, and the falls of the Ohio, 
where they had dwelt some time, and where 
large hands had separated from them, and dis- 
tribiite;^l tiiemselves in the surrounding country. 
Those who did not remain in the Ohio country, 
following its waters, reached St. Louis, where 
other sei)arations took place, some following 
the Mississippi up to the north, others advan- 
cing up the waters of the Missouri. He enu- 
merated many existing tribes who had sprung 
from tiieir stock, but mentioned the Saukies as 
a people not related to them. It would seem, 
lljerefore, from this chiefs account, that the In- 
dian tribes have always been in the habit of in- 
truding upon other nations with as little cere- 
mony as the whites have upon them. 

Amongst the curious corruptions which In- 
dian names have undergone, Major Sibley men- 
tioned the following : Of the Indian name Wha- 
shash, the French have made Osages, and have 
divided them into Ics Grands Osages et les Petils 
Osages ; but as the voyagairs abbreviate every- 
thing, they called them les Grands Sds cl les 
Petits Sds, pronouncing the word pet its plils 
and tils. The Americans, who followed the 
French, and adopted their terms without un- 
derstanding their language, have transmogrified 
" les Petits Osages" into the Teat Saws.* After 
such a specimen of etymology, no wonder that 
great changes have been produced in language 
by savages who have been intruding upon each 
other perhaps for 2000 years. 

Major Sibley also gave us a great deal of cu- 
rious information of the customs of the Indians, 
and of some of the causes of their going to war 
with each other. It sometimes, he said, occurs 
jn a tribe, that young men, either because they 
are enamoured of the daughters of some of the 
chiefs, or moved by other causes, are determin- 
ed to perform some achievement that will raise 
them into importance. Stealing horses, if done 
adroitly and successfully, is considered an hon- 
ourable action ; surprising and scalping indi- 
viduals of a distant tribe, with whom they are 
jiot upon good terms, is a sure road to distinc- 
tion. The preparations are silently made and 
^promptly executed ; then comes retaliation, and 
after it war. When a young woman is about to 
be married amongst the Osages, an Indian, who 
fills the office of town crier, takes her dressed 
in all her finery rouad the town, and announces 
that she is going to become the bride of such a 
j'oung man. Upon one of these occasions, when 
the daughter of a distinguished chief was about 
to be led round, painted in grand costume, her 
cheeks and her hair smeared over with vermil- 
ion, it was suggested by one of the chief's wives 
that Major Sibley's clean white shirt would con- 
trast very well with the vermilion, if it were 
put on the young maiden ; so he very gallantly, 
in the assembled presence of her friends, strip- 
ped himself of his shirt, and the young lady put 
it on, to the great delight of everybody. 

The Osages, in the opinion of Major Sibley, 
are as capable of showing strong affection and 
friendship as the whiles, and are sometimes 
passionately attached to one of their wives. 
The other wives are with them rather in the 



* Tliis is equal to the name a* island in Lake Michigan 
now goes by, which from " Bois Brfll6" has been changed 
into " Bob Eule^'." 



capacity of help-mates, for when an Indian is 
opulent everybody flocks to his lodge, and he 
must have assistance to prepare food for them. 
These supernumerary wives he occasionally 
permits, from motives of gain or friendship, to 
cohabit with other men ; but if one of them 
without his connivance is detected in her infi- 
delity, he takes a summary and barbarous re- 
venge. He conducts her himself to the prairie, 
and there delivers her to twenty-five young men, 
where, after being brutally treated by them, she 
is turned adrift, and ever after considered infa- 
mous. This IS called " walking the prairie.'" 

In the morning, after a hearty breakfast, vvi 
took leave of the worthy Major, and went to see 
the Mammelles, of which we had heard a good 
deal. They were nothing hut rounded detached 
points of land belonging to the bluffs of the pla- 
teau, to which the early French voyageurs had 
given this name on account of their form. From 
the top of one of them we had a fine view of 
the extensive prairie at their foot : viewed from 
a distance these Mammelles have the appear- 
ance of isolated mounds, and it is only when 
close to the bluffs that you perceive their real 
character. 

On our return to St. Louis, our new purchase, 
Missouri, remembering his stable there, per- 
formed to admiration, and seemed determined 
to support the high character his vender had 
given him : this excellent person, when I laid 
the money down before him, and asked him for 
a receipt, was so affected either by the sight of 
the dollars, or the loss of such a valuable ani- 
mal, that with a melancholy kind of tone he of- 
fered the following spontaneous pledge to me : 
— "Stranger, if that ar boss don't go like a 
screamer, I'll give you leave to ex-flunctify me 
into no time of day at all ; if I don't I'm no ac- 
caywnt I reckon, not by no manner of means.'' 
A very generous proceeding on his part, since 
it was not included in the bargain, and one 
which it was not easy to appreciate ! 

On the 2.5th of October, in the evening pre- 
ceding our departure from St. Louis, there was 
some danger of a row in the town betwixt the 
Roman Catholics of the lower classes and the 
Presbyterians. The new Catholic cathedral 
was to be consecrated on the succeeding day, 
at which ceremony many bishops and clergy- 
men from a distance were to assist. General 
Atkinson, in honour of the occasion, had very 
kindly permitted the band of the sixth regiment 
to be in the procession, and had lent them two 
field pieces. During the night some ill-natured 
persons spiked them, and the enraged French- 
men of the lower classes imagining it to have 
been a spiteful act of the Presbyterians, seized 
the guns, and threatened to turn them against 
one of the meeting-houses. Better* counsels, 
however, prevailed ; the guns were unspiked, 
and order was restored. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

Departure from St. Louis— The Comforts of au Indian Mat- 
rimonial Alliance — Tame Buffaloes — Herculaneum in 
America — Immense flocks of Cranes — History of Mrs 
Gallatin— Valine's Mines. 

We took our final departure from St. Louis 
on the 26lh of October. Our " Dearborn" just 



72 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



held everything that we possessed comfortably ; 
we had added a lop to it to shelter us from the 
sun and ram, our harness was in good order, 
and perhaps we were as well equipped for get- 
ting through a savage sort of country, cut ofT 
from everything like old society, as we could be. 
As we drove through the streets, Missouri be- 
came exceedingly restive, and gave sundry 
signs of dissatisfaction by plunging and eleva- 
ting his hind heels rather too much above the 
level of the shafts to promise any good to the 
general concern. The fact was that the Cana- 
dians were blowing away out of the two pieces 
of cannon as fast as they could, and our horse 
did not like the noise. At one time I thought 
we should have been wrecked before we got out 
of the town ; but by a little management and 
coaxing we at last got out of the sound of the 
uproar, and Missouri showed his usual docility. 
I remained a short time at Carondelet, and pro- 
cured some fossils from the limestone beds, of 
the same species with those at St. Charles and 
St. Louis, and at evening drove up to General 
Atkinson's, at Jefferson Barracks. He and his 
lady were assisting at the consecration at St. 
Louis ; but he had left orders that I was to take 
possession of the house without ceremony 
whenever I arrived, so that we got into good 
quarters at once. Meantime, Captain Nevvitt, 
an officer of the sixth regiment, whom I had 
become acquainted with at the White Sulphur 
Springs, undertook to entertain us at the mess 
until the General's return. Here one of the offi- 
cers, who had been several years in the Northern 
country amongst the Indians, related an amusing 
adventure of his own. He had been living a long 
time alone, and had no society whatever, ex- 
cept occasionally a few of the Indian chiefs 
whom he knew, one of whom had a young and 
rather pleasing daughter. Her brother, who 
had been amongst the whites, and spoke a little 
English, one day asked him if he would like to 
have her for a wife, and told him that if he 
would make the usual presents to the family, 
she should come to his lodge. As she was a 
comely and clean-looking young squaw, he got 
the necessary presents from the sutler, consist- 
ing of cloth, blankets, tobacco, gunpowder, &c., 
and delivered them to her friends ; upon which 
she was brought to his tent, and left there, di- 
vested however of every article of clothing, ex- 
cept an old dirty blanket which covered her 
shoulders. When he returned in the evening 
he found this young creature crouching down in 
a corner, and half-frightened out of her senses. 
He now sent for some old squaws, and had her 
thoroughly scrubbed, washed, combed, and clad 
in new clothes. The next morning he went 
out a hunting, and on his return in the evening 
found they had taken all her clothes away again. 
This was repeated three times, when, losing his 
patience, he told the brother that if it were done 
again, he would send her back to her father's 
lodge, and have nothing more to do with her. 
Although she was now permitted to keep her 
clothes, he was soon visited by an annoyance 
of another kind, for every day all her friends 
and relations came to his tent to see her and 
talk to her, and as the Indians are the idlest 
people in the world when not occupied in the 
chase or in war, he found it at length impossi- 
ble to drive them away. 



The fact is, that when there is anything to 
eat in a lodge, the Indians go to work as if there 
would be something wrong in procrastination, 
and so seriously set about eating everything up 
at once ; and his young housekeeper following 
the example she had witnessed at her father's 
lodge, gave them everything she could lay her 
hand upon ; they ate his bread, his meat, his 
sugar, and they used everything that he had in 
his tent besides. At length they took to sleep- 
ing in it, so that it was in a fair way of becom- 
ing a receptacle of filth of every kind. He now 
found out that the comforts of matrimony with 
a comely and clean-looking Indian maiden may 
be purchased rather too dear, and like all men 
who have made a precious bad bargain, began 
to sigh for the tranquillity of his bachelor's life. 
At length his impatience became so great, that 
he told his brother-in-law, the match-maker, he 
was determined to strike the tent, and break up 
the matrimonial connexion. But the brother 
took it up very punctiliously, and said as the 
girl had not been unfaithful, he could not do it 
without offending all her relations : this the of- 
ficer was aware of, and would have been not a 
little puzzled what to do, if the Indian — who 
from the first had been more solicitous about 
what he could get from him than for the honour 
of his alliance — had not relieved his anxiety by 
saying, " You my broder, you got big heart here, 
very big heart ; you lay blanket on ground, rifle, 
powder, shot, tobacco, cloth for leggings, my 
sister go back with me to lodge." The officer 
saw at once that this was the least troublesome 
and expensive course to pursue to get a divorce, 
so closed with the offer, and thus got rid of his 
lady, who very contentedly went back to her 
connexions with her new suit of clothes on. 

The limestone beds on the shore of the Mis- 
sissippi here abound in cyathophylla, calamo- 
pora, and terebratula ; they also contain round 
nodules of flint, with silicified alcyonia and en- 
crinites : the bluffs are about 150 feet high, and 
are composed of various beds of limestone. On 
the evening of the 27th General Atkinson and 
his lady arrived, with information that the fes- 
tival had gone off harmoniously, and that the 
spiking of the cannons had been traced to some 
idle young fellows for whose conduct no sect 
was responsible. On the 28th we bade adieu to 
our kind friends at Jefferson Barracks, and took 
our departure for the lead mines in the State of 
Missouri. 

The country for a great distance around the 
garrison abounds with the same kind of depres- 
sions on the surface that we noticed in the lime- 
stone country betwixt Nashville and Louisville, 
called sink-holes. The road was indifferent, 
and led through a forest of oaks, through which, 
as we were passing, we were very much amu- 
sed with the quails, which were so numerous 
and tame that they would scarce get out of the 
way with a crack from the whip-lash. After 
drivingeight miles, we came to a broad rich bot- 
tom of land, through which flows the Merrimac 
River, a beautiful stream, about 160 yards wide. 
The southern sources of this river rise in Wash- 
ington County, in the State of Missouri, and on 
its way to the Mississippi it receives Big River, 
about thirty miles»west from its mouth : wc 
crossed it in a ferry-boat, about one mile from 
the confluence. Rising out of this valley we 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



73 



came again upon the table-land to a high undu- 
lating cduiilry, consisting of" limestone, wilh 
abundance of chalcedonised chert. 1'lie ex- 
traoidiiiaiyquantity of siliceous matter in these 
calcareous beds is quite remarkable. At the 
Sulphur tipnngs, sixteen miles from the garri- 
son, we were overtaken by a cold heavy rain, 
and Slopping at a plantation belonging to Major 
O'Falloii, an Indian agent, who was from home, 
we took the liberty of quartering ourselves there 
for the night ; a black woman, who was left in 
charge of the premises, entertained us in the 
best manner she was able, and laying ourselves 
quietly down upon some buffalo hides, spread 
upon the floor near a good fire, we got over the 
night as well as we could. The springs, at this 
place, are slightly impregnated with sulphuret- 
ted hydrogen, and the solid contents in solution 
are muriate of soda and carbonate of lime. In 
a field, not far from the house, I saw two tame 
buffaloes which the Major had brought from the 
Indian country, a bull and a cow ; they looked 
exceedingly thin and lank : indeed, I have nev- 
er seen any of these animals in good condition 
when under restraint, and I am told that they 
seldom breed when deprived of their liberty. 

In the morning we proceeded to Herculaneum 
on the banks of the Mississippi, through a coun- 
try of limestone knobs : this little place is built 
at the edge of the river, in the front of a semi- 
circular cove where the edges of the strata of 
limestone are worn down so as to resemble the 
seats of an ancient amphitheatre, from which 
circumstance Mr. Moses Austin, the original 
founder of the place (the father of Mr. Austin, 
the leading man amongst the Americans in the 
Mexican province of Texas), who was a fanci- 
ful as well as an enterprising person, gave it the 
name the ancient city bears, which has been so 
many centuries covered up near Naples. At 
each horn of the amphitheatre the limestone 
blufi's are very fine, and the beds are so full of 
seams and blotches of black siliceous matter, 
that the mineral contents of the beds seem to be 
almost equally divided between silex and lime. 
We got a very comfortable breakfast at this 
place, at a small hut kept by two women from 
JMew-England, who had brought all the nice 
clean habits of their own respectable State here 
with them ; and, pursuing our journey, we dis- 
covered, whilst getting out of the ferry-boat on 
crossing the Si. Joachim — which figures on some 
of the American maps as Sivasking Creek, a 
strange imitation of St. Joachim — that an im- 
portant part of the machinery of our waggon was 
broken. This was an incident that brought us 
up in good season ; we were still in the neigh- 
bourhood of Herculaneum, where, fortunately, 
there was a blacksmith, and torrents of rain 
were pouring down. All this would have been 
bad enough if we had been far from any settle- 
ment ; for although we were provided with ham- 
mers, and nails, and cords, and every appliance 
for common accidents, we had no blacksmith's 
forge, and the case required one. We therefore 
drove to the blacksmith's, and finding that we 
could " get in" at a widow's close by, whose 
name was Gallatin, I went there, and found her 
a very respectable person, with a clean bed- 
room and sitting-room at our service ; indeed, 
our quarters looked so prouiising that I deter- 
" to stop here a short time, being desirous 
K 



of looking about me, and examining the shores 
(if the Mississippi. As soon therefore as the rain 
ceased, we sallied out and climbed to the top of 
the bluff behind Mrs. Gallatin's house, which is 
about 100 feet high, and upon which a Mr. 
Bates, one of the original settlers, has erected a 
shot-tower, where a great deal of shot is made, 
that is dropped from the height of 130 feet. 

The river scenery is remarkably beautiful at 
Herculaneum ; the bluffs are imposing, and dis- 
integrate in a peculiar manner into large grot- 
toes, which look as if they had been excavated 
by man, but they are to be seen in the very in- 
cipient part of the process at the most inacces- 
sible parts of the top of the bluf!'. On the shore 
immense blocks of limestone, filled with chert, 
as much as the chalk is with flint in some parts 
of England, are piled upon each other. To the 
north the view is very graceful : the alternate 
bold and depressed banks on the left, the pictu- 
resque wooded islands in the river, and the rich, 
alluvial bottoms of the State of Illinois, making- 
a fine picture. To the south the long vista down 
the Mississippi, its well wooded and lofty banks ; 
the extensive island in front of Herculaneum,. 
with a spacious level and dry sand-bar, that at 
this season of the year might be converted into 
an excellent race-course ; the whirring and 
croaking of tens of thousands of cranes {Mega- 
lornis Americanus), the scourge of the corn-fields,- 
that after their devastations by day return at 
night to the sand-bar to set up a croaking that 
makes the whole country ring again ; the flocks 
of wdd geese that rival the cranes with their 
harsh trumpeting ; and, last of all, those mon- 
sters of the waters, the numerous steamers- 
heard from a distance of several miles before 
they are seen, and which, when they appear, 
come on belching and sughing out from their 
metallic throats as if they were huge animals in 
their last agony ; all these concurring features 
excited our admiration strongly, and we con- 
fessed that we felt as if we were realising some 
of those fancies which are so eloquently ex- 
pressed in the tales of the " Arabian Nights." 

Being desirous of examining the opposite 
shore, I engaged a man to take us across the 
Mississippi in his skiff, which here is about a 
mile wide : the skiff was an old rotten, ticklish, 
affair, but as we could not get a better, we en- 
tered it with our rifles, and landed on the large 
island in front, which has been cut off by the 
river from the Illinois side. It contains several 
hundred acres of good soil, but on account of 
its lying very low, and being subject to annual 
inundations, can never be cultivated. I made 
my way through the small timber that covers it, 
but found no game, although my son, who trav- 
ersed the island in another direction, got a sight 
of two deer, without however getting a shot at 
them. From this place we got into our danger- 
ous skiff again, and after being snagged two or 
three times, at last paddled ashore. We walk- 
ed along the fertile alluvial bank to Harrison- 
ville, one of those wretched settlements con- 
sisting principally of a country store or two. 
Seeing a very extensive field of Indian corn. I 
asked the owner how many bushels it would 
average per acre, and he answered, that the 
crop had suffered much for want of rain, and 
would not average more than sixty bushels per 
acre, but that in good seasons the land would 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



yield from 80 to 100 bushels. He also said that 
good corn was now at 15 and 20 cents the 
bushel, and that some persons who wanted 
money very much had offered their crops at 12^ 
cents (sixpence) : he added, that it was not an 
uncommon occurrence here to sell a barrel of 
sound corn, containing seven bushels, for one 
dollar. The people at this place were begin- 
ning to recover slowly from their annual attacks 
of the fever and ague : their sallow, emaciated 
countenances, that looked distressed by the 
monstrous quantities of calomel they were ac- 
customed to take, and the feeble and uncertain 
steps with which they went about their avoca- 
tions, betrayed how dearly they paid by the 
3oss of health for the privilege they enjoyed of 
occupying a fertile soil, which, whilst it gave 
them the means of existence, destroyed the 
power of enjoying it. 

From hence we walked six miles through the 
" American Bottom," the greater part of which 
is a rich alluvial flat, to the limestone bluffs, the 
limit of the bed of the ancient Mississippi, whilst 
thousands of cranes were wheeling about and 
deafening us with their cries : not far from the 
bluffs were several lagoons, containing immense 
numbers of fresh-water shells, especially Ana- 
dontas, which delight in dead water. Prodigi- 
ous quantities of wild fowl were disporting upon 
these pools, where we shot some very fine fat 
teal with brilliant green wings. After a fatigu- 
ing day we retraced our steps, and re-crossed 
the river to our lodgings. 

The vast extent of the calcareous strata in 
these parts of North America, exhibiting an 
uniform flat deposit for many htmdreds of miles, 
awakens many reflections. It is a popularopin- 
son amongst geologists, that the sedimentary 
■beds are derived from the detritus of other rocks 
which preceded them, and in many instances, 
no doubt, the opinion is well justified. But 
where are the roots of the rocks that have fur- 
nished the mineral matter of which the whole 
basin of the Mississippi and hundreds of miles 
of contiguous territory are formed, comprehend- 
ing an area as large as Great Britain? And 
-what a stretch of the imagination does it not 
require to contrive the destruction of a conti- 
nent of such extent ! It would seem to be a 
jnuch more simple process, and one capable of 
fulfilling all the conditions of the problem, to 
suppose a great portion of the solid contents of 
the existing strata to have once been in solu- 
tion in subterranean depths, and to have been 
sent to the surface loaded with calcareous mat- 
ter, as in the case of the Sweet Springs in Vir- 
ginia, and with siliceous matter, as in the case 
of the Geysers, as they are exhibited in our own 
day. The manner in which siliceous matter is 
often found mixed up with the calcareous rocks 
certainly seems to point to a period when they 
were in the state of calcareo-siliceous mud de- 
posited from thermal sources, the molecules of 
the respective minerals having cohered togeth- 
er by mutual attraction. 

The morning succeeding to our excursion I 
went farther d'jwn the shore of the Mississippi, 
on the right banic, for the river being unusually 
low at this season, I thought it probable some 
beds might be exposed which I should never 
have an opportunity of seeing again ; and I was 
jiot mistaken, for about a mile north of the 



Plattin Creek, which is about thirty-three miles 
from St. Louis, I found an important bed of 
sandstone, only a few inches above the level of 
the river, of a loose granular texture, consisting 
of quartzose grains held together without ce- 
ment, and so very incoherent in some places 
that it crumbled between the fingers. Upon ex- 
amining the calcareous rocks in the bank which 
rested upon the sandstone, I found that a great 
change had taken place, and that they no long-" 
er consisted of compact limestone containing 
seams and blotches of cherty matter, but that, 
though much mixed up with silex, they were 
fetid, non-fossiliferous, and abounded in cale 
spar with occasional streaks of sulphate of lime : 
mdeed they so strongly resembled some cal- 
careous beds I had seen in the galeniferous 
countries of Europe, that I thought it probable 
they might he connected with the lead district 
which lay immediately to the west. I was, 
therefi)re, extremely particular in my examina- 
tion of the sandstone bed and the beds immedi- 
ately above it, as they might serve as keys to 
decipher the stratification of the lead district 
which I was about to enter. 

We had been so much interested with the 
geology and natural history of the neighbour- 
hood, and were so well satisfied with the quiet 
and comfortable quarters Mrs. Gallatin had pro- 
vided for us, that we did not leave her house 
until the 31st of October. She was a person of 
great worth, and when I learned her history — 
which is not an uncommon one in this part of 
the country — I could not but feel great respect 
for her. Her husband had lived happily with 
her for a great many years, but having become 
a speculator, had mismanaged his affairs and 
brought upon himself numerous pecuniary em- 
barrassments : not liking his prospects he, like 
many others, determined to go to Texas, a 
country which had for some time loomed up as 
the asylum of that portion of oppressed human- 
ity that feels nervous under the restraints of 
law. He, therefore, left his excellent wife with 
three modest, amiable daughters, all marriage- 
able, one son an adult, and another a child of 
about five years old, under a solemn promise 
that he would return for them as soon as he 
had provided a home there. After he had been 
absent two years she received a letter from 
him, which held out some encouragement of 
his return, but another j-ear had passed away 
and she had heard nothing more. " He has 
been too long away from us now," said she to 
me with an appearance of subdued grief, " too 
long I imagine ever to wish to come back to us 
again. J tliink he must have pretty much for- 
gotten us by this time, and we must try not to 
break our hearts about it." All the individuals 
of this family were remarkable for the neatness 
of their persons ; the mother had known much 
better times, and although her conversation and 
conduct proved that she knew how to meet this 
trial with spirit and sense, yet in her counte- 
nance well-defined traces of sorrow were to be 
seen. The daughters were maidenly looking 
young creatures, with great modesty of de- 
meanour, and the eldest son appeared a steady 
and useful man, extremely attached to his moth- 
er and sisters. They seemed to be all usefully 
employed from morn to night, and to be habit- 
ually under the influence of the religious train- 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



ing they had received. I felt great sympathy 
for this worthy family on partms with them, 
especially for the sorrowful mother ; but I had 
seen many more unfortunate than themselves, 
for they were manifestly under the care of Him 
who protects and blesses the virtuous in adver- 
sity. 

We left the Cove of Herculaneum by a deep 
miry road in the black soil, and with some dif- 
ficulty Missouri got our equipage up a very 
steep and had hill, at the top of which we found 
ourselves in extensive barrens containing strag- 
gling trees. We had not proceeded very far in 
the country ere I saw on our left a denuded 
sort of deep ravine, and descending into it I 
found at the bottom the incoherent sandstone I 
had seen on the shore of the Mississippi : and 
on examining the upper strata I recognised the 
fetid non-fossiliferous calcareo-siliceous beds, 
which satisfied me that I had got a good hold 
of the stratification. Having gone about ten 
miles we stopped at a settler's named Strick- 
land, who had erected his house near a spring, 
and following the water down to a bottom not 
far from his dwelling, I found some thin beds 
of limestone and lithographic stone of a very 
good quality, resembling the white lias. 

From hence we proceeded eleven miles over 
a broken and undulating country to Vallee's 
Mines, the sandstone occasionally cropping out 
at the surface of the ground, and at length 
came to a low bottom where some smelting 
houses were erected. - Here were Vallee's 
Mines, but as to regular mining no such thing 
had ever been practised at the place, nor any 
kind of mining beyond digging shallow pits into 
the alluvial soil in search of galena or suiphu- 
ret of lead, which at some period when the ga- 
leniferous rocks once in place here were de- 
stroyed, had been left in the superficial soil, 
from the size of a pin's head to masses weigh- 
ing several hundred pounds. These pits, from 
six to twenty feet deep, exist in such great 
numbers, that it is very difficult to drive be- 
twixt them, even upon the road, and in the 
night-time it would be impossible. Great quan- 
tities of sulphate of harytes, called tiff by the 
■workmen, is found where they dig, and a pro- 
fusion of dark red clay is also thrown out by 
them : but the confused manner in which the 
digging is carried on at this place baffles ail in- 
I'esligation. The people employed were prin- 
cipally French ; the men were brutal, and not 
disposed to conversation, and the only person 
from whom we could obtain almost any infor- 
mation was an old French negress, who had a 
great deal of that politeness which distinguish- 
es the old school. The sinelting was conduct- 
ed in a wasteful manner, in small out-door fur- 
races, with galena and wood alternately piled 
in layers As soon as we had seen everything 
worth our attention, and fed our horse at a 
-wretched looking hut where there was a pack 
of dirty old beldames, we continued on to Tap- 
lilt and Pcrrifs Mines, where I hoped to find op- 
erations going on in the rock. The road was 
bad and difficult, and led us to the brow of an 
abrupt iiill, from whence we perceived a pretty 
valley bcneatli us, and a number of huts which 
■we supposed belonged to the mining establish- 
ment. Night was approaching, it was cold, we 
•jvere very much jaded as vygjl as our horse, 



and on reaching the place, received with no 
small degree of sensibility the information that 
tiiere was no tavern of any kind there, and no 
place at which we could stay, as all the huts 
were full of working people. 



CHAPTER XX. 

Taplitt and Perry's Lead Mines— Geologj- of the Lead Dis- 
trict— System of Galeniferous Veins— Their Structure 
analoffous to the Trap Veins at Trottemish in Scotland 
— Fannington — Visit to the Iron Mountain. 

I.\ this dilemma I went to a kind of double 
log hut which had rather a more imposing look 
than the rest, to try if we could not make in- 
terest to be housed for the night. An old ne- 
gress, who cooked for the party in this hut, said 
that " Dr. Perkins was the master there, that 
he did the doctoring about, and that he was 
from hum, and she didn't tiiink we could get in 
nowhere." Just at this moment a good-look- 
ing young miner coming up to the hut, I made 
our situation known to him, and he said we 
were welcome to stay all night if we would put 
up with such fare as we should find. As nei- 
ther Missouri nor ourselves had formed any 
great expectations, we gladly accepted of his 
offer, and proceeded to take care of our horse 
and luggage. The hut was soon afterwards 
filled with miners, who came in for the even- 
ing, and in a short time we became acquainted 
with the friends we had to mess w-ith, who 
treated us with great kindness. Our fare, to 
be sure, was humble enough, salt beef with 
very wretched coffee, and not a drop of milk ; 
but the bread was palatable, and having prepa- 
red some of our own tea, we managed tolerably- 
well, and passed the evening talking with the 
miners by the side of a cheerful fire. The 
young man, to whose civility we had been so 
much indebted, had the management of a part 
of the concern entrusted to him, and he inform- 
ed us that shafts had been sunk here in the solid 
rock with great success, which we should have 
every facility of examining in the morning. 
This was very gratifying information ; for such 
confused ideas had got abroad of the geological 
character of the lead district, that everything 
was to learn about it, and these shafts could 
not but afford a great deal of instruction. 

Finding these miners to be all resolute young 
adventurers, and quite intelligent and obliging, 
I felt bound to contribute something on my part 
to the entertainment of the evening, and pro- 
duced some old Cogniac brandy which we had 
laid in for great emergencies only — and it was 
so highly approved of, that when the hour for 
sleeping had arrived, they surrendered in the 
most friendly manner one of their beds on the 
floor, upon which my son and myself, without 
being too curious, laid down and passed the 
night. In the morning we partook of the frugal 
breakfast of our entertainers, and sallied out to 
examine the hills preparatory to descending the 
shafts. The country in the lead district, except 
where it is interrupted by the valleys, presents 
an extensive table-land, through which a few 
slight streams run. which are used by the mi- 
ners to wash the soil taken out of the shallow 
pits or " diggings" which have before been spo- 
ken of, and which were first commenced by the 



76 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



Spaniards when they had possession of the 
country. These streams, in cutting their way 
through the superficial soil, had sometimes dis- 
closed valuable deposits of the ore, and this had 
induced adventurers to commence "diggings" 
in other parts of the alluvial soil, sinking Iheir 
pits until it became inconvenient to throw or 
hoist the mineral matter out, and then abandon- 
ing them to excavate others. I observed people 
occupied in this kind of work in several places : 
the soil at the top consisted generally of about 
a foot of red earth mixed with pieces of mamil- 
lary quartz and petro-siliceous stones ; next a 
deposit of red clay of a few feet deep, resting 
upon a bed of gravel and cherty pebhles, in 
which the fragments of galena were contained 
These deposits do not differ in point of mechan- 
ical arrangement from the gravel deposits con- 
taining gold in the Southern States, all of which 
appear to be the result of the destruction of the 
superior strata. 

At present, owing to the greater energy of 
the Americans, almost the whole surface of the 
country is dug up into pits of various sizes, 
from four feet diameter to some exceeding 
twenty fieet square, with a proportionate depth. 
These larger areas belong entirely to modern 
times, and are the result of the discovery grad- 
ually made, that the loose fragments of galena 
in the superficial soil, which were once the sole 
object of the diggings, are connected with 
"mineral" — as it is called here — imbedded in 
the solid rock. As soon as this was ascertain- 
ed they went to work as men would do in an or- 
dinary quarry, without much relation to method, 
and in one or two places I saw a quarry of the 
extent of half an acre opened, and people blast- 
ing the galeniferous rock with gunpowder ; so 
that mining, as it is called here, is precisely 
what quarrymg is in other places. 

In selecting a place for conducting these ex- 
cavations, they observe, as the miners do in 
Cornwall, certain external indications of " min- 
eral" on the surface, such as the prevalence of 
masses of quartzose rock, generally cellular and 
full of groups of small mamillary crystals, which 
are often very brilliant. These crystals fre- 
quently rest upon chalcedonized concentric lay- 
ers with an agate structure. In other instances 
the crystals are formed into pyramids, and their 
masses are hollow. These quartzose masses 
are called in the mining district " mineral blos- 
som," and are always thought, I believe with 
justice, to indicate the presence of galena be- 
low : indeed it was obvious to us, on entering 
the lead district, that a great change had taken 
place in the mineral matter; numerous locali- 
ties presenting a confused but distinct and rath- 
er unvarying character of crystallization in the 
agate structure, the mamillary quartz, and the 
indications of sulphate of barytes. 

The hills around the small valley where we 
were, consisted of the same calcareo siliceous 
rock which we had seen superincumbent upon 
the incoherent sandstone. Some practical Eng- 
lish miners had stink a shaft on the slope of 
these hdls, and Messrs. Taplitt and Perry, being 
enterprising men, had imitated their example. 
The shaft they had sunk was 110 feet deep, and 
the young miner who had the charge of it very 
obligingly caused me to be let down in the buck- 
et, and gave me every a'd and facility for ex- 



amining their underground works. For the 
first sixty feet we went through the calcareo- 
siliceous rock, rather incoherent towards the 
top, and then came upon a horizontal vein o 
sulphuret of lead : lower down they had come 
upon a second horizontal vein, the appearance 
of which was surprisingly brilliant and curious ; 
for as I stood in the widest part of the drift, I 
could see a band of bright shining compact ga- 
lena upwards of a foot wide, running through 
the rocks in a horizontal line. Numerous sub- 
ordinate veins and threads were connected with 
;his hand, and where the metal appeared to be 
promising, they had cut drifts into them. In 
pursuing this principal horizontal vein, I came, 
in succession, to a great number of cavities or 
pockets in the calcareo-siliceous rock of various 
sizes, all of which seemed to be analogous to 
those which exist underground in the gold re- 
gion of Virginia. Some of them were not more 
than four or five feet wide, whilst others were 
much larger. The largest I entered was about 
forty feet from top to bottom, and about thirty- 
five feet in diameter. In this, as well as in the 
other cavities, they had uniformly found an im- 
mense quantity of red clay, resembling that 
found in the superficial deposits, with a thick 
plate of sulphuret of lead at the bottom of it, as 
if it had sunk there by its specific gravity. But 
what gave me the greatest satisfaction was 
coming at length to a vein almost vertical, con- 
taining a breadth of about eighteen inches of 
compact galena ; this my conductor said they 
called the main channel. I took its course, and 
found it to be N.N.E. S.S.W., with an inclina- 
tion of 18°. On a full consideration of all the 
circumstances connected with this main chan- 
nel, I came to the opinion that all the horizon- 
tal veins were lateral jets from this vertical 
lode, which, rising from below, had injected the 
horizontal bands into the rock. The phenome- 
non appeared to me to be quite analogous to the 
case which Mr. M'Culloch has cited of the in- 
jection of horizontal bands of trap into sand- 
stone, at Trotternish, in Scotland.* 

Having made these observations upon the di- 
rection of the veins, I commenced an examina- 
tion of their structure more in detail, and found 
they were all what is called in some of the min- 
ing districts of England "wet veins," being, with- 
out exception, encased, not in sulphate of bary- 
tes, but in pure bright red argillaceous matter, 
quite wet beneath the galena, and cutting with 
a shining waxy face. Wherever the metal runs, 
this wet red clay accompanies it, enclosing it as 
it were in a sheath, and carrying along with it 
sometimes nodules of quartz, iron, zinc, and a 
little galena, a compound to which the miners 
have given the name of dnj bones. We here 
find the origin of the red clay which covers the 
gravel beds of the superficial soil in the valleys, 
and an almost incontrovertible proof that that 
deposit is the result of the destruction of an- 
cient beds. Everything connected with the ge- 
ological phenomena of the metallic districts of 
this country concurs to show that there has 
been in ancient times a period of great violence, 
accompanied with mighty aqueous action, that 
has ended in greatly lowering the ancient sur- 
face. 

We were informed that the y could raise and 

* Vide M'CuUoch's " Western Highlands of Scotland." 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA, 



77 



bring to the surface at these mines 5000 lbs. 
■weight of the ore a clay, a quantity that I should 
think could be easily quadrupled, if the demand 
for the metal justified it. Tlie compact sulphu- 
ret they obtain is very valuable, for it is free 
from foreign matter, and yields 65 per cent, of 
pure lead of commerce. I advised them to de- 
sist from cutting drifts upon so many of the 
threads, as they were making a labyrinth of 
their works, but_J,o sink another winze from oue 
of their galleries, and cut out upon the main 
channel below, as it was not improbable that in 
doing so, they might intersect another suite of 
horizontal bands of the ore. 

Having paid our debt of hospitality to our 
]\ind entertainers in douceurs to the black work- 
men in their service, we shook hands cordially 
■with them, thanking them with great sincerity, 
and departed for Farmington, a small village, 
distant about twenty miles. We kept the high 
table-land for the first ten miles, constantly ac- 
companied by the mineral indications, and then 
descended to a low country where the calcareo- 
siliceous rock no longer appeared. Crossing a 
pretty stream, called by the French Terreblue — 
of which the Americans have made Tarblue, — 
whose waters were exceedingly pellucid, we 
passed some fai'ms where the soil seemed to be 
fertile, and in eight miles more reached Farm- 
ington, and put up at a quiet comfortable tav- 
ern kept by a Mr. Boice. Here I had a chance 
of writing up my journal, which was a little be- 
hindhand, and of doing justice to my internals, 
which for some time had been upon rather scan- 
ty allowance. 

The distance from this place to the Iron 
Mountain, which was the great lion of this part 
of the State of Missouri, being only sixteen 
miles, I determined to take a look at it, and Mr. 
Boice having procured us a couple of country 
saddle-horses, we gave Missouri a holiday, and 
started early the next morning. Our course 
was about S.W., and having proceeded four 
miles the country began sensibly to grow high- 
er, and we came upon some thin beds of the 
calcareo-siliceous rock; but in four miles more 
a still greater change took place, for we came 
to very lofty hills of a different kind to those 
we had seen on the preceding day, with an ab- 
rupt and stony ascent. Having reached a place 
where the rocks were entirely denuded, I dis- 
mounted, and found we were upon a formation 
of well-defined syenite, consistmg of a regular 
chain, apparently running for a great distance 
N.E. and S.W. Crossing this chain, we turned 
into the woods in a S.S.W. direction to exam- 
ine it on the west side, and there found it de- 
flected rather inwards, taking somewhat a cra- 
teri-form. Riding on about an hour and a half, 
we at length came to a hill where the syenite 
was ponderously impregnated with iron, and at 
a distance of about a mile from this, reached 
3ne of the rarest metallic spectacles I have ever 
witnessed. 

This consisted of two very singular hills, 
sparingly covered with trees, and adjacent to 
3ach other ; one of them about 350 feet high, 
ind both together perhaps containing 500 acres 
3f land The surface of these hills had the ap- 
pearance of being paved with black glossy-look- 
ng pebbles of iron, having a bright metallic 
'racture of a steel gray colour Beneath these 



pebbles, as far as I could judge, there was a sol- 
id mass of micaceous oxide of iron, and I traced 
it north and south near half a mile, until it was 
covered with the superficial soil at the foot of 
the hills. Near the tops of these hills are im- 
mense masses of this oxide, and the space be- 
tween them is filled up by fragments that have 
been broken from them, with angular edges a 
little rounded by the weather. Some portions 
of the ore are mixed up with quartzose matter 
of a flinty character, and, in some instances, 
crystals of iron were imbedded in the quartz. 
The other hills around, which I had an oppor- 
tunity of examining, consisted of a dark-col- 
oured coarse quartz with reddish felspar, but 
no mica. We were filled with admiration at 
what we saw : everything had the appearance 
of being metalic matter erupted from below, 
and I left the place regretting that I could not 
devote a whole week to a more particular ex- 
amination of this curious syenitic chain, as we 
had been informed that other parts of it con- 
tained very striking mineral phenomena. 

On our return at evening we saw a great 
many coveys of quails, with a numerous flock 
of fine grown wild turkeys ; and as they beha- 
ved with pretty much the same indifference to 
us that tame ones would have done, we dis- 
mounted, tied up our horses, and gave chase to 
them in the woods ; but they had not been 
creeping about the day before on their hands 
and knees in lead mines, nor gone through a 
fatiguing day's ride of forty mdes as we had 
done, and soon left us at a very satisfactory dis- 
tance ; we therefore remounted, pushed on to 
Farmington, and after partaking of such a meal 
as country people roused from their beds were 
disposed to give us, retired willingly to rest. 

On the third of November we started at an 
early hour for Mine la Motte, about sixteen miles 
from Farmington. There is a good deal offer- 
tile alluvial soil in this neighbourhood, where 
emigrants from Tennessee and Kentuky have 
settled themselves, hut they do not live com- 
fortably. People of this class usually leave 
their native homes compelled by their poverty, 
and not being strangers altogether to the pre- 
carious and shifty existence of settlers in a 
wild country, they have recourse to all sorts of 
simple expedients to get along, and end by 
adopting, as permanent usages, the shifts they 
had at first been compelled to practise. These, 
with their descendants, become manners and 
customs, to which the traveller is obliged to 
conform. Their cooking, their washing, their 
eating, their sleeping, and all their domestic 
matters are got through with in the simplest 
way, without much system, and with very little 
ceremony. An explorer of this wild country 
soon becomes accustomed to their ways, and is 
quite contented — if he is a man of experience — 
when he finds them good-tempered and clean. 
He is generally hungry, and if he finds anything 
on the table that he can eat with satisfaction, 
he slicks to that, helping himself liberally at 
first ; for inconstancy and the search after va- 
riety do not generally produce useful results in 
countries where the grand object is to lay in a 
capital supply for the gastrics to work upon as 
long as possible, and where there is not much 
certainty about the next meal. The real cares 
of such a traveller are food /or the day, and a 



78 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



clean lodging for the night. He may get some- 
thing to eat at one place, and at -night he may 
come to another with little or nothing that he 
can eat, and must content himself with lying 
down on the floor, wrapped up in his own gar- 
ments, there to get what sleep he can amidst 
the whole assembled family. His happy mo- 
ments are all out of doors, where nature, always 
clean and always attractive, generally compen- 
sates him for every privation : there clinging to 
the open woods and the murmuring streams as 
long as daylight lasts, he reluctantly seeks the 
habitation of man only when compelled by want 
of food and rest. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

Mine la Motte— Veins of Galena tlistuAed by electric Mat- 
ter — Earthquake at New Madrid in 1811 — Fredericktown 
— A Judge's Encomium on the Missouri Bar — Panther 
Stories— Greenville— Fare at an opulent Missouri Farm- 
er's — Life of a Squatter— How to " bring up" the Sover- 
eign People — Bear Oil Currency— Scene in a Court of 
Justice. 

We soon began to cross some of the head 
waters of the river St. Francis, and after pass- 
ing a deep ravine where strong horizontal led- 
ges of sandstone jutted out on its sides, we 
came upon an extensive table-land, where the 
trees being nearly all cut down, I supposed we 
were near the mine : soon after we reached 
some miserable log cabins on a naked plain, in- 
habited by the most ignorant human beings I 
almost ever conversed with, the mothers and 
wives of some of the labouringminers. A couple 
of miles farther on we came to the old French 
village of Mine la Motte, where was another 
set of miserable huts, in the inside of one or two 
of which, however, I perceived some signs of 
hope, such as tea things neatly arranged, bed- 
curtains, looking-glasses, &c., belonging to the 
families of some English miners, as we found 
upon inquiry. Speculators from all quarters 
seem to have resorted to this place; the French 
are not very numerous, and those who succeed 
the best are the English, who have been brought 
up to mining in their native country ; for being 
conversant with the throw of veins, and accus- 
tomed to follow a regular system of work, less 
of their labour is wasted : the Americans, how- 
ever, are gradually adopting their plans, and be- 
ing ingenious mechanics and persevering men, 
are beginning to do very well. What rather 
surprised me was, that even Englishmen had 
adopted the method of quarrying instead of sink- 
ing shafts, alleging, as the reason, that the whole 
vicinity was so cut up by pits made by those 
who followed the practice of shallow digging, 
that it was hardly practicable to do anything 
but quarry the ore, for which the nature of the 
surface offered great facilities. 

This part of the lead district presents many 
curious phenomena deserving attention. Its 
surface is upon a table-land of great extent, with 
a few inconsiderable streams passing through 
it, and the diggings are so numerous in every 
direction, and the country is so wasted, ttiat the 
cattle running at large frequently fall into the 
holes. One quarry had been opened to the ex- 
tent of fifty feet in length and twenty-five feet 
in depth, and another had been irregularly work- 
ed in the side of a hill for a greater distance, so 



that sections of the manner in which the galena 
was connected with the stony matter were ex- 
hibited in various ways. At the quarry called 
Mme la Prairie, the galena not only ran in the 
rock in compact bands, as at Taplitt's, but in 
some places was interspersed with it in small 
patches, and sometimes the calcareo-siliceous 
rock was even speckled throughout with minute 
portions of the ore, so as to give the appearance 
of the stony and metallic matter having both 
come into place at the same time, for if either 
the one or the other were abstracted, no prin- 
ciple of cohesion would be left for the remain- 
ing mineral. This ore is troublesome to reduce, 
being much mixed with sulphuret of copper, and 
only yields from 40 to 50 per cent. 

In another quarry phenomena of a different 
character presented themselves ; the calcareo- 
siliceous rock .was so decomposed as to be quite 
incoherent, and loose enough to be shovelled 
out ; occasionally it changed its character, the^ 
silex and lime being separated so as to leave 
the rock sometimes hard, sometimes soft, some- 
times granular, sometimes compact. In one 
place I observed a seam of sandstone near three 
feet thick lying upon a seam of bright galena 
six inches broad, with limestone below. But 
what inade this locality, where the constituents 
of the calcareo-siliceous rock had separated, so 
interesting, was the state of the galena found in 
it. A band of ore, upwards of twelve inches 
wide — which evidently had once run horizon- 
tally in a compact body through the rock, like 
that which we had seen at Taplitt's — was still 
there, but shattered and dislocated into myriads 
of sharp angular fragments, some of them stand- 
ing on their edges in one direction, eight or ten 
inches wide, and others at right angles to thein ; 
whilst near to them parts of the original com- 
pact horizontal band were lying flat on the rock 
as if they had never been disturbed, resembling 
the condition of the shattered flints in the chalk 
cliffs at the Isle of Wight. For this phenome- 
non, perhaps, the proxiinate cause is at hand, 
in the subterranean disturbances that seem t» 
be peculiar to this district, and which occurred 
at New Madrid, on the Mississippi, in 1811 and 
1812.* These produced very remarkable ef- 



* New Madrid is a settlement on the right bank of the 
Mississippi, about seventy miles south-east from this dis- 
trict ; it received this name inconsequence of its having been 
the site of an old Spanish post, and was settled first in 1780. 
The country around is a flat alluvial area without a vestige 
of rocky strata in any part of it, generally well wooded, but 
containing two or three prairies of about five miles square, 
where cotton and Indian corn are cultivated. 

In the month of December, 1811, the inhabitants of New- 
Madrid were roused in the night by distant rolling sounds 
somewhat resembUag the discharge cf artillery ; soon after 
this the earth began to rock to and fro, and to open into vast 
chasms, from whence issued a dense vapour accompanied 
with torrents of water. Near one-half of the county of New 
Madrid was depressed about four feet from its ancient 
level ; the bedsof ancjent lakes were upheaved, and became 
areas of sand, and lands of the most fertile quality were 
sunk in some places and converted into lakes, one of which 
is said to be sixty miles long and from three to twenty miles 
broad ; some parts of this lake are so shallow as to permit 
the tops of the trees to appear above the water, but the 
depth in other parts is said to be from fifty to (me hundred 
feet. At one moment of this convulsion a portion of the 
bed of the Mississippi was heaved up so high as to make its 
waters refluent, and accumulate them to an extent which 
menaced the sulimergence of all the adjacent country ; and 
the settlers were only spared this evil by the increasing 
power of the aqueous volume, which at length wore a pas- 
sage through the artificial dam thui created, and restored 
the channel. 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



fects ; tliey raised and depressed extensive dis- 
tricts of country, filled up old lakes and formed 
new ones, and completely changed the surface 
of the country in the interior for a great distance 
on the west side of the river ; a disturbing in- 
lluence which, from causes unknown to us, may 
have frequently visited this part of the country 
Perhaps even the syenitic chain, which includes 
the Iron Mountain, may have been thrust up at 
the period when an electric power of great in- 
tensity passed along these lodes, and brought 
them into their present shattered condition. 

Highly gratified by what I had seen here, we 
departed (or Frederictown, four miles distant, 
over a tolerably level country. This was the 
ancient St. Michel of the French, in the vicinity 
of whi(;h this modern American settlement has 
been built on a hill, with its court-house and 
steeple, a magnificent object to our now rustic 
eyes, so long accustomed to log cabins. We 
stopped at an indifferent-lotjking tavern, kept by 
a German named Heihner, an intelligent and 
good man, who was exceedingly unhappy at 
this time, having had the misfortune to kill a 
drunken Frenchman who had insulted and an- 
noyed him excessively in his own house. He 
was under bad for a large amount, but enter- 
tained confident hopes that he would he acquit- 
ted upon his trial, as it was known to many re- 
spectable people that the Frenchman was the 
aggressor, and would probably have slain Heth- 
ner if he had not been too quick for him. 

This tragical incident had occasioned a feud 
in the place not very favourable to the poor Ger- 
man's hopes, a strong party having been formed 
exceedingly hostile to him ; for a majority of the 
inhabitants being of French origin had taken up 
the affair warndy, and being a foreigner he had 
not as many friends as a native American would 
have had. Nevertheless, he was not without 
them ; some of the most respectable people 
were determined he should have fair play, and 
the magistrate who had admitted him to bail 
was at the head of them. A person we became 
acquainted with gave us an amusing account of 
this worthy personage, who had been " raised" 
on the frontier settlements of Kentucky, and el- 
evated to the dignity of judge of the county 
court here, not because he had ever studied 
law, or any other art or science, but because he 
was a thorough going party-man. The judge 
was a straight-forward, fearless person, and, 
having emigrated into the state of Missouri in 
consequence of a ruinous law-suit, iiad brought 
with him an utter detestation of lawyers. It 
happened that the friends of the deceased 
Frenchman had engaged the services of a con- 
ceited, talkative, satirical limb of the law, who 
also had come here to make his fortune, and 
betwixt this man and his honor the judge a 
grudge had arisen upon the following occasion. 
Amongst the functions his honor was charged 
with, was the duty of taking acknowledgments 
of deeds ; and soon after his elevation to the 
bench the attorney wailed upon him accompa- 
nied by a female, and, presenting hmi with a long 
conveyance, told him he was " to examine her 
secretly and apart," whether she had signed the 
deed by coaipulsion, and was to certify the afRda 
vil immediately, as they wanted to use the deed 
in half an hour. Ashe had never exercised this 
fun(;tion before, and had no very clear notion 



of what sort of examination she was to under 
go, and, above all, not liking either the man or 
his manner, he told him to leave the paper, and 
that he would look it over and see what he 
could do. To this the attorney testily replied, 
"you have no business to look at the paper at 
all, your business is only with the atlld'avit." A 
little nettled at this want of reverence, the judge 
as sharply rejoined, " I calculate you must take 
me for a most almighty fool to suppose that I'm 
a mind to swar to what's in that ar paper be- 
fore I've read a word in it, and I ain't a-going- 
to do no sich thing for no lawyers on the uni- 
versal arth, I tell youV It was in vain his hon- 
or was told that he was not the person that was 
10 swear to the affidavit ; he would not listen 
to the attorney, and the lady inclining to the 
judge's opinion, and expressing a wish that he 
would read the paper, the attorney was outvo- 
ted and had to submit, taking his revenge, how- 
ever, afterward, by ridiculing the judge upon 
all occasions. At the period when this homi- 
cide took place, his honor had received so many 
affronts from the attorney that a " rumpus" was 
expected betwixt them every time they met. 

When Hethner was brought before tlie judge, 
a violent altercation arose betwixt him and the 
attorney on the propriety of admitting the ac- 
cused to bail. Authorities were quoted, statutes 
were produced, and the bench was emphatically 
told that he " could not by law admit him to 
bail, and that no man that was the very begin- 
ning of a lawyer would say he could." To all 
this his honor replied, " the court knows well- 
enough what it's abaywt, it ain't a-going to do 
no sich thing as read all them law books by no- 
manner of means, and it's no use to carry on so, 
for the court decides all the pynts agin you."'. 
Having delivered the opinion of the bench with 
great firmness, his honor now took to a remarka- 
ble personal peculiarity he had, which was to 
gather his lips together when he had made a 
speech, and suck the air in with great vehemence. 
No sooner, therefore, was the decision promul- 
gated than the attorney sarcastically observed, 
"Some folks gets their law from books, and 
some folks, I calculate, mu.st suck it in" This- 
sally having produced a universal titter, his hon- 
or immediately arose to vindicate the dignity 
of the bench, and addressed the following elo- 
quent rebuke to the offending barrister : — " Suck 
or no suck, I swar I ain't a-going to be bully- 
ragged by no sich talking Juniuses as you, a 
sniggering varmint that's the non compus men- 
tus of all human abhorrence, and that's parfictly 
intosticated with his own imperance — that's 
the court's candid opinion — if it ain't, I wish 

the court may be etarnally ." 

I should have been glad to have visited other 
parts of this interesting mining district before 
the winter had set in, if my plans had permitted 
me to do so, but we had still .500 miles of this 
part of the country to travel over in a S.W. di- 
rection before we could reach the Mexican fron- 
tier, and during the whole of that distance. Lit- 
tle Rock, upon the Arkansa River, was the only 
village we should meet. Our horse Missouri, 
too, had shown symptoms of not being equal to 
the task of drawing his load over roads that 
would probably not grow better as we advan- 
ced : this was a discouraging circumstance, as 
our sole dependence for accomplishing our touc 



80 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



•was upon him. I determined, therefore, to de- 
fer my visit to Potosi and some other mines to 
a more favourable opportunitv, and putting our 
waggon into the-best order that we could, and 
agreeing to ease our horse by walking the whole 
"way if necessary, we took leave of this the last 
village on our route to the Arkansa, and, with 
my rifle on my shoulder, and my hammers in my 
belt, and my son holding the reins, and walking 
by my side, we now entered the endless forest. 
In the course of the morning we got upon hilly 
land, and found it less woody, but abounding in 
pebbles of hornstone, masses of cellular mamil- 
lary quartz, opaque flints, siliceous gravel, and 
•everything indicating a mineral country where 
•quatzose and siliceous matter had the dominion 
Not only were the pebbles of mamillary quartz 
agatized at the edges, but large nodules of 
opaque flint in concentric circles occurred at 
every step. These mineral indications increas- 
ed as we advanced, and on an extensive ridge 
■which we had to traverse we could find nothing 
but siliceous matter. Having made about six 
miles, we passed some heads of the St. Francis, 
the water of which was beautifully transparent, 
as are all those of this siliceous region. 

Seeing a smoke at some distance in these 
pine barrens, I walked some distance to it in 
the expectation of meeting with some person or 
other, but it only turned out to be some old logs 
burning ; and as we advanced we found the 
whole country black and incinerated in every 
direction, the woods having been generally on 
fire. At Twelve Miles Creek we found some 
obscure settlers, and at sixteen miles from 
Frederictown we passed lofty hills of massive 
dark reddish greenstone, probably connected 
with the syenitic chain : we then fell down to 
a bottom of some extent, and at twenty-three 
miles crossed a mountain about two miles and 
a half from foot to foot, composed of the old 
siliceous matter, hornstone, mamillary quartz, 
&c. A mile farther brought us to a settler's 
named M'Faddin, on a fertile bottom of land, 
half a mile east of the river St. Francis. The 
bed of this stream contains great quantities of 
siliceous gravel, a circumstance unfavourable 
to the erection of water-mills, since it makes it 
difficult to lay their mill-dams on the solid rock, 
and when they do not succeed in doing so, the 
water dodges under the gravel, and the dam 
comes down. For this reason the people about 
here are frequently obliged to send their corn 
fifteen or twenty miles to be ground. Mr. 
M'Faddin showed me pieces of galena that he 
had ploughed up in his lands : zinc also and 
manganese are found, which last the settlers 
call black tin. In every direction the mountains 
contain magnetic oxide of iron, this appearing 
to be the favourite metallic associate of siliceous 
countries. 

Here we boiled our kettle, and got a refresh- 
ing cup of tea, which, with the addition of a 
mouthful of buffalo tongue, taken from a small 
supply we had brought from St. Louis, set us 
all right again. M'Faddin is an experienced 
hunter, and entertained us with some capital 
wild-beast stories. The panthers are numerous 
about here, and are frequently killed. His son 
and a negro man had lately driven one up a tree 
with their dog, but they had no gun, and being 
determined on having some sport they cut the 



tree down with their a.xes. The animal not 
being much stunned when he came to the 
ground, immediately made fight and flew at 
them ; but the negro having disabled him with 
a gash from his axe, he was soon dispatched. 
This was considered a daring achievement, for 
the paniher when roused to resistance is con- 
sidered dantrerous, and only to be dealt with by 
the rifle. M'Faddin told us of a singular habit 
of this animal, who, when he has killed a deer 
or any creature he has mastered, first feeds 
upon it, and then covers his prey over with 
leaves, lying there to watch it until he is hun- 
gry again, M'Faddin has frequently found a 
stag covered in this manner, and the panther's 
lair near to it, when he has been frightened 
from it by the dogs. Only a very short tinae 
ago he was searching the woods for his hogs, 
when he roused a large panther, who taking to 
a tree, was brought down with the rifle ; re- 
turning to the place whence he started him, he 
found one of his hogs covered up with leaves, 
that the animal had killed and partly devoured. 
Bears, too, are numerous, and when in the au- 
tumnal evenings they are heard scratching ia 
the dry leaves for mast, the hunter steab upon 
them with his rifle : this is called stdl-hunling. 
A mile from this place we got again upon the 
calcareo-siliceous hills, the rock being fetid in 
many places, and found masses of compact sul- 
phate of barytes with the usual quartzose indi- 
cations. The change of level was now con- 
tinued from one hill and valley to another, and 
rendered our progress slow ; at seven miles 
from M'Faddin's we ascended a very abrupt hill 
about 1200 feet high, composed entirely of sili- 
ceous matter, and at the summit enjoyed what 
we had been long strangers to, an extensive 
view of the country. Immediately below us 
was a very deep glen, as savage-looking as the 
wildest nature could make it, distinguished by 
a fearful but attractive character : we had been 
told of this place, and that it was not resorted 
to by panthers, because there was no water 
near. It is water that makes herbage plentiful, 
and the smaller animals attracted by it are fol- 
lowed by the rapacious carnivorous ones which 
prey upon them. To the N. and N.W. were 
numerous lofty ridges running nearly parallel to 
each other, like those of the Alleghany ; and 
here and there to the west some remarkable 
high cones, overtopping all the other mountains. 
The ridge upon which we stood was not more 
than 100 feet broad, and assuming a semicircu- 
lar form, gave a crateri-form appearance to the 
glen below. We enjoyed this view exceeding- 
ly ; its extent and grandeur, the perfect silence 
and solitude of the scene, the consciousness that 
we were there alone, in a country so wild and 
savage, that if any misfortune happened to us, 
we could expect no assistance ; and the more 
comfortable consciousness that we were in the 
possession of health, strength, and resolution, 
imparted a romantic and exhilarating feeling 
that made us happy for the moment. 

From this mountain, at the foot of which frag- 
ments of galena have been found, we descended 
three miles to Greenville, a poor wretched col- 
lection of four or five wooden cabins, where the 
miserable inhabitants die by inches of chills and 
fever. It is a most distressing thing to arrive 
at these settlements on the water-courses at 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



81 



this season ; the poor people, feeble, emaciated, 
and sallow, are just beginning to recover from 
the malaria of the country : to many of the 
persons whom I here saw life seemed to be a 
burthen, whilst others were roistering about at 
that indespensable' rendezvous of every seltle- 
. ment, a dirty-looking store, where all the vaga- 
bonds congregrate together, to discuss politics 
and whiskey. The settlement, however, is 
beautifully situated on a rich bottom of land on 
the east bank of the St. Francis, a fine clear 
stream about eighty yards broad, running thirty 
feet lower than the banks at this time, but 
"which often during the floods overflows them. 

After feeding our horse, and endeavouring in 
Tain to purchase a little milk for ourselves to 
eke out some gingerbread we had, we proceed- 
ed fifteen miles farther through mountains and 
fertile bottoms resembling those of the morning, 
until at night we reached a settler's of the name 
of Stevenson, half a mile distant from Big Black 
River, a tributary of White River, in the terri- 
tory of Arkansa, which it joins a little south of 
36° of N. lat. Here we were obligingly receiv- 
ed, and having taken care of our horse, sat 
down with the family to their humble evening's 
repast. Not having eaten since I left Frederic- 
town, I was ready enough, and there was some- 
thing on the table they called a dish of meat ; 
but it was such an extraordinary-looking afl^air, 
that I did not venture even to taste it : there 
•was also a companion to it which went by the 
name of pumpkin pie, a dish that in the Atlantic 
States is deserving of every commendation. I 
did taste this, but it would not do; so asking 
permission to boil a cup of my own tea, I ate a 
sweet potato with it, and afterwards went into 
the yard to eat a piece of gingerbread, for the 
double purpose of satisfying the cravings of my 
appetite, and of not giving offence to our hosts 
by appearing to be above eating the fare they 
had provided. 

And here it is to be observed, that these peo- 
ple occupied 160 acres of fertile bottom land, 
had 1000 bushels of Indian corn ready harvest- 
ed, two or three hundred bushels of wheat, nu- 
merous cows, with a boundless range for them 
on the adjacent hills and bottoms that afforded 
excellent grass, great numbers of barn-door 
fowls, wild turkeys in profusion around them, 
deer to be had at an hour's notice ; and yet so 
indolent were they, and so ignorant of the de- 
cencies of existence, that they would not take 
the least pams to prepare anything that was 
nourishmg even for themselves. With such 
people every repast, whether it be breakfast, 
dinner, or supper — for there is no variety in 
their meals — consists of the worst possible cof- 
fee, indifferent dirty frothy-looking butter, black 
sugar or honey, as the case may be, a little ba- 
con, or some sort of dried meat cooked, I do 
not know how, and as tough as leather, and 
miserably made Indian corn bread : if you ask 
for milk, the general answer is, " We ain't got 
none, for the kayws is somehaw got a haunt of 
not coming hum." Eggs we have not once 
met with. 

All these settlers are, in fact, drawn from the 
poorest classes of Tennessee, Kentucky, and 
Louisiana. Where they are agriculturists they 
are hardworking enterprising men, always busy, 
fencing, ploughing, chopping timber setting traps 



for the wolves, hunting the panthers that de- 
stroy their calves and swine, and are continu- 
ally occupied without a moment's relaxation. 
With them the ceremony of eating is an affair 
of a few moments ; the grand object is to fill 
the stomach as quick as possible with the usual 
food ; this, from long habit, they prefer to any- 
thing else; and the women having got into a 
daily routine without any motive for changing 
it in the slightest degree, and, indeed, witliout 
even suspecting that it would be agreeable to 
anybody to do so, go on preparing the same dis- 
gusting coffee, pork, bread, and butter three 
times a day, as long as they live. 

If the settler is merely a hunter and a squat- 
ter, you find a poor cabin and no farm ; a cow, 
perhaps, that comes in from the woods once 
every two or three days to get a little salt, and 
that then only gives a leacupfull of milk. But 
in most cases when you arrive, the owner of the 
mansion is not at home, and in his place you 
find six or seven ragged wild-looking imps, and 
a skinny, burnt up, dirty female, who tells you 
that he " is gone to help a neighbour to hunt up 
an old painter that's been arter all the pigs ; he 
ain't been hum in a week, and I reckon he's 
stopt somewhar to help to shuck corn (the strip- 
ping the maize from the husk when it is ripe) : 
we han't not nothing in the house but a little 
corn that I pounds as I uses it, and a couple of 
racoons jist to sarve us till he gits back."* The 
corn they consume is paid for in deer-skins, and 
the heavier debts of the squatter he literally li- 
quidates with bears' oil. K he has to negotiate 
the purchase of a horse to the amount of 50 
dollars, the items of the appropriation are as 
follows : On or before Christmas he is "to tura 
in" 15 gallons of bar (bear) oil, the current value 
of which is one dollar per gallon ; twelve deer- 
skins at 75 cents each ; then he is to go with 
" a negur" to Big Swamp to help to " hunt up" 
some young horses that were taken there six 
months ago to pasture, and is to have a dollar 
a day for that service ; and as to the rest, he 
" is to git along with it somehaw or other." 

This curious bargain I took down from the 
mouth of one of these fellows who had been 
born in the woods, had never even been in a 
village, and knew nothing of the arts and cus- 
toms of society. He seemed a fearless, good- 
tempered creature, with a great deal of conceit 
of his own cleverness ; had no property of his 
own but his rifle, and never had possessed any 
save that which he acquired by his wandering 
and desultory pursuits. He had a prejudice 
against all men who were not, like himself, 
freed from every kind of restraint, and did not 
go willingly amongst them. When I had con- 
versed with him for some time, he asked me if • 
I was a lawyer. I told him no, that I was afraid 
I was nothing much to boast of in the way of 
business. " Why, then," said he, " I swar that's 
jist what I am, and I'm glad you are not a law- 
yer, for the lawyers is the most cursedest var- 



* A traveller in these districts told me that he once came 
to such a place, where the number of little peltry clad imps 
was so great, and they ran abont so quick, tliat he could not 
get an opportunity of counting them. Not one of them had 
a hat, and never liaving- used one, the hair of every one of 
them was white. Upon his saying to the mother, " Why, 
you have got a surprising^ quantity of children ; how do you 
ever mean to brin? them up?" "Bring- 'em up!" replied 
she, " why, my husband brings 'era up every Saturday, I 
reckon, and then I washes 'em all." 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



mint, I reckon, that's abawt ." "Where have 
you met with any lawyers," said I ; " there are 
none in this part of the country 1" "Stranger," 
he repUed, " I once lived ajyning (adjoining) to 
the Gasconade what runs into the Missoura, 
and so they set off Franklin Caywnty ajyning to 
it ; and wherever they set up a caywnty, you 
see, there the lawyers is sure to come. And 
so a farmer what I owed fourteen deer-skins to, 
sent a constable and tuk me, and wanted to 
haul me into the caywnty, and so the more he 
wanted me to go the more I wouldn't go, and I 
gave him a most almighty whipping. Soon 
arter three fellows comed from Franklin and 
tuk me, and hauled me to what they called the 
court-house, where there was a lawyer they 
called Judge Monson, and he fined me ten gal- 
lons for whipping the constable. ' Why,' said 
I, 'you don't mean to say you'll make me pay 
ten gallons for whipping that ar fellow T 'Yes, 
I do,' says he, ' and that you shall see !' 'Then,' 

says I, ' I calculate I'll whip you like the 

first time I catch you in the woods, if I have to 
pull all the bees and all the bars in Missoura 
out of their holes.' And so the crittur had me 
locked up till one of the settlers that wanted 
me to do a job for him said he would pay the 
ten gallons : but I didn't like them prac/yces ; I 
seed the country warn't a going to be worth 
living in, and so I left the Gasconade Caywnty 
and comed here, for you'll mind that wherever 
the lawyers and the court-houses come, the 
other varmint, bars and sich like, are sure to 
quit." 

Characters of this kind are now only to be 
met with on the remote frontiers : most of their 
cabins are destitute of furniture and food, and 
at certain seasons the sickly inhabitants look as 
if their clothes had never been taken off, their 
faces washed, or their hair combed. The set- 
tling of the country is a great annoyance to men 
of this class ; for where the white man comes 
to plant and live, the buffalo and elk will not 
stay, the deer and bear become thinned off, and 
amongst his former friends the hunter is almost 
reduced at last to the deer, the wild turkey, the 
racoon, and opossum, which being totally insuf- 
ficient for his wants, he gradually becomes a 
dependant upon the more opulent planter, the 
only person who has always something to eat. 
This he tries for a while, and pays for his sub- 
sistence in little jobs ; but the restraint is too 
great, and at length he bursts his chains, and 
plunges into the wilderness some hundreds of 
miles off, " whar the bars is a plenty." 



CHAPTER XXIl. 

Big Black River —First appearance of Parroqueets — Elk 
and Buffalo— Little|Black River— A Disaster and a Night 
in the Woods — Ivory-billed Woodpeckers, and one of the ; 
Sovereign People unable to hold the reins of Govern- 
ment—A Forest on Fire— The Currant River. 

At the break of day 1 left my uncomfortable 
bed, and having refreshed myself at the well, 
examined a ravine not far from the house, in 
the banks of which I found some very long and 
curious stalactitic rods of oxide of iron. Veins 
of micaceous oxide are very abundant in this 
neighbourhood, and some hunters who frequent 
the mountains inform me that it is in the great- 



est profusion in various localities there. Pur- 
suing our journey, we came to Big Black River^ 
a broad limpid stream, with a rapid current 
moving down so swiftly that our horse, after 
taking us one-third of the distance across, be- 
came alarmed, and 1 was afraid we were going 
to have a scene with him. We found it impos- 
sible to get him to move without compromising 
the safety of our vehicle and luggage ; so, after 
trying in vain to get him on for a quarter of an 
hour, it became at length necessary for one of 
us to get into the river and try to lead him. My 
son accordingly got into the water and led him 
a few steps, whilst I plied him with the whip 
to prevent his stopping. On nearing the shore 
we found the water almost took him off his legs, 
and my son, finding it too deep to walk, let him 
go. In this dilemma, and every moment ex- 
pecting to come to a grand stand-still, I happily 
reached the bank, but with the waggon full of 
water, and my son scrambled out of the river as 
well as he could It had been a severe frost 
during the past night, the water was bitterly 
cold, and he suffered a good deal ; so we stop- 
ped on getting to dry land, and soon got up a 
cheerful fire for him to change his clothes at. 
We now perceived that, if we had taken a dif- 
ferent period for passing these mountains, we 
could not have proceeded, for in the rainy pe- 
riods these fords are impracticable for wheels, 
as well as many of the bayous and creeks. 

After travelling some distance through the 
forest, we got upon an extensive bottom, where 
we again found the country on fire, the leaves 
and twigs all burnt up, and every thing as black 
as soot. At length we reached a place where 
fire had not passed, and as there was a small 
clear running stream close by, we determined 
to make this our breakfast parlour. Whilst my 
son attended to our horse, I collected materials 
for a fire ; and after many vain attempts to light 
it with some pretended English matches I had 
procured in Baltimore, I succeeded. The next 
thing was to set our new tin tea-kettle that we 
had procured at St. Louis on the fire, and bring 
it to boiling heat. All this I did with so much 
dispatch and apparent cleverness, that I could 
not help calling to my companion to observe 
my rare dispositions in the culinary line. Un- 
fortunately, I was too soon obliged to put a 
much lower estimate upon them than I at first 
thought they deserved, for my son, coming to 
the fire, communicated the alarming informa- 
tion that I had made a veteran of the new ket- 
tle on its very first performance. The fact was 
that I had left it a few minutes, and the fire 
burning up fiercely had made it completely black 
with smoke, and what was worse, and was a 
serious misfortune, had melted all the soldering 
from both the spout and the handle, so that we 
were immensely puzzled how to take hold of it 
and convey it to the teapot. We, nevertheless, 
made a cheerful and hearty breakfast. Mrs. 
Stevenson had managed to put us up a bottle of 
new milk before we came away, we had good 
black tea, nice loaf sugar, some biscuit and buf- 
falo tongue, and were in capital spirits. As we 
were breakfasting, four beautiful crested wood- 
ducks alighted in the stream not far from us, 
but they became alarmed before we succeeded 
in getting a shot at them. Just before we left 
the place, we perceived that our fire was creep- 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



ing through the leaves, and that, if not extin- 
guished, It might produce a serious conflagra- 
tion. Thinking it right to leave Nature as clean 
as we (bund her, we spent about a quarter of an 
hour in bringing pails of water from the stream 
untd the fire was out. Many careless persons 
do not take so much trouble ; they kindle a fire, 
and then leave it unextinguished ; the conse- 
quence of which frequently is, that many thou- 
sands of acres are burnt over, the mast upon 
which the deer and bears would have fed is de- 
stroyed, the buildings of the farmer endangered, 
his fences burnt down, and his corn-fiekls in- 
jured- The hunters, too, sometimes, with the 
intention of driving the game to a particular 
quarter, will purposely fire the country in vari- 
ous places, indifferent to the devastation and 
inconvenience they cause ; and all this merely 
to get a few deer with greater dispatch than 
they would do by going a little farther into the 
country. It is in vain to remonstrate with these 
men ; they live by getting deer, and as they look 
upon the farmer as an intruder, have little or 
no sympathy for him. 

A few miles from this place we came to a 
shallow ravine, or dry bayou, with a little stag- 
nant water at the bottom. The bank was very 
steep ; and when we got down our wheels stuck 
fast in a mud-hole, from which our horse with 
all his efforts could not extricate them. After 
many futile attempts, we were obliged to take 
him out, unload the carriage, cut poles and logs 
to place before the horse as a bridge for him to 
stand on, and using others as levers, finally, 
after three hours' hard work, succeeded in suc- 
cessfully assisting Missouri to get us out of the 
bayou. We now reloaded and pursued our 
journey, and after travelling a few miles over a 
kind of ridgy country, sometimes upon calcareo- 
siliceous beds, at others upon siliceous rocks, 
came to one small ridge which we found almost 
composed of millions of tons of the very best 
gun-flint, equal in quality to the chalk-flmt of 
Europe ; a substance unknown in the United 
States, there being no chalk beds hitherto dis- 
covered there. 

Descending to the south we came to some 
very beautiful situations of fine dry undulating 
land, easy of access, the slopes exceedingly gen- 
tle, and beautiful woodland trees scattered about 
as they are seen in the charming park scenery 
of England. Having made about fourteen miles 
we stopped to feed our horse at a Mr. Eppes's, 
who has a plantation on a very fertile bottom, 
and here we saw the first appearance of a cane- 
brake {Miegia macrosperma) : this plant is al- 
ways indicative of good soil, and in some por- 
tions of the southern States pushes up its jointed 
stem amidst the forest trees so thickly that a 
chicken would sometimes find it difficult to creep 
betwixt the plants. We had also other indica- 
tions of a Southern latitude here : small flocks 
of parroqueets were wheeling and screaming 
about in the bright sun, and showing their brill- 
iant colours to the greatest advantage. 

Upon the wall of the cabin where the family 
]ived was a frame upon which the skin of an elk 
was stretched that Mr. Eppes had killed the day 
before. Learning that he was in a corn-fielii 
about half a mile distant, I walked there and 
found him, when he confirmed to me what I had 
before heard, that in the " Big Swamp," which 



bordered his plantation on the east, and which 
extended about twenty miles to the river St. 
Francis, there were still a great many elk and 
buffalo, the only situation in which these ani- 
mals are to be found east of the most advanced 
settlements of the whites, it being favourable to 
them from the great extent of the swamp, the 
luxuriance of the wild grass, and the absence of 
man. Mr. Eppes related to me that two or 
three days ago he and his son had entered the 
Big Swamp to hunt up some young horses they 
had turned into it in the spring to thrive upon 
the leaves of the miegia, which granivorous an- 
imals are very fond of; that wandering about 
in the mazes of the swamp, and tearing their 
clothes to rags amongst the green briars {snnlax), 
the supple jacks {Mnoplia voluhiHs), saw briar 
{Schranha homdula), and all sorts of pests of 
their kind, they had lost themselves, and know- 
ing of no method to find out where they were, 
but going to the river to observe the direction: 
of the current, they crossed a broad "sign" or 
track of buffalo, where at least forty of them had 
recently passed. This they knew by their dung, 
the marks of their hoofs, and the peculiar tracks 
these animals make when they travel. Sooa 
afterwards they crossed a " sign" of numerous 
elk, and whilst they were deliberating what to- 
do, three large ones came trotting up and stood 
still at no great distance from them. Mr. Eppes 
fired and one of the elk dropped : the others 
stood some time by their fallen companion, but 
made off before he had time to load again. He 
said they were about the size of a large Spanish 
mule, and that they looked extremely well with 
their branching antlers when they first came 
boldly up. Having skinned the animal they left 
the carcase behind, and soon after, coming upoa 
their own trail, proceeded home. 

From hence we proceeded through some 
pleasant open woods, consisting principally of 
oak-trees growing on a very fertile soil ; and 
some time after night heard the murmuring 
sound of Little Black River before us. I hesi- 
tated a moment whether or not to stop and biv- 
ouack here — our experience of the last ford we 
had passed did not afford much encouragement 
for a similar adventure in the dark ; but Mr. 
Eppes had assured us the ford was an easy one, 
Missouri seemed very willing, and I thought I 
would proceed a few miles farther through the 
thick woods, where we could have seen nothing 
by daylight ; so whipping on our horse, away 
we went literally, for, in making a sort of turn 
to go down the bank, the nigh wheels, which 
we could not see, got on a hummock of land;, 
and the whole concern, including the \\nZ2^ 
pecting Missouri, made a complete turn over, 
luggage and all, leaving the waggon bottom up- 
wards. We both of us jumped out, as we felt 
we were coming to a "fix," and thought with 
dismay upon this most disastrous occurrence. 
Our fine-tempered horse behaved extremely 
well ; instead of kicking up a rumpus in the 
dark, and making things worse, which would 
have been a very natural step for him to take, 
he laid still, and permitted us to take the wag- 
gon to pieces as well as we could, and to un- 
buckle and unstrap him before he stirred ; he 
seemed almost to comprehend us as we patted 
and comforted liim ; and it was not until he 
could neither hurt the waggon nor himself, that. 



84 



TI^AVELS IN AMERICA. 



a little aided by us, lie maae an effort, and with 
a plunge arose from tlie very awkard position 
in which he lay with his bank down hill. 

We were now brought to a "nonplush;" it 
was dark, our luggage, our axes, our hammers, 
our rifles, our everything that we had in the 
world, was scattered on the beach, and we had 
nothing to do but make the best of what had 
happened, and endeavour to look cheerfully for- 
ward rather than to look sorrowfully back. Our 
first care was to tie up our horse, our next to 
regain the bank, choose a level and open place 
in the wood, and make a good fire. All this 
being successfully done, we gave Missouri his 
corn in the pail, and secured him for the night 
with a long rope that admitted of his having a 
limited range to pick up the wild grass in. We 
next made a small fire on the beach, and by its 
aid collected and put together the parts of our 
waggon — not one of which was broken — and 
drew it to a safe place beyond the danger of a 
sudden rise of the stream. We then gathered 
together our luggage, our provision-basket, and 
all the articles we could see, leaving my loose 
specimens and other small matters on the beach 
until morning. Things being made as snug as 
circumstances admitted of our making them, we 
got a warm cup of tea and a mouthful to eat, 
and then proceeded to lay in a supply of logs 
for our fire. 

It was a very cold night, and unfortunately 
dead wood was not plentiful where our camp 
was pitched ; having, therefore, collected all 
that was at hand, we went to work and cut 
down some young trees, a laborious operation 
that made our hands sore. The last thing was 
to spread our buffalo-hides on the ground, put 
our large blanket coats on, and lie with our feet 
to the fire, my son taking the first watch. Ma- 
king my pillow of some minerals that were tied 
up in a bag, I tried to compose myself to sleep, 
and looking upwards at the brilliant stars of 
heaven through the tops of the trees, waited 
until the oblivious moment should come upon 
nie, which at length it did, and dreams of other 
scenes came and went in my wandering ima- 
gination. Besides the rigour of the weather, 
the damp from the river fell heavily upon us, so 
that we were constantly obliged to replenish 
our fire, and twice had to get up and cut more 
wood. Durmg the night various animals, at- 
tracted no doubt by the fire, came rustling 
through the leaves and alarmed our horse ; the 
whooping of the owls was disagreeably fre- 
quent; the howling of the wolves and barking 
of the foxes were more amusing. But there 
was one animal, however, most resolutely and 
mischievously curious, and which we could not 
drive away. What it was we could not see ex- 
actly, as it did not come very near to the fire, 
but kept constantly hovering and prowling 
about . sometimes, when we attempted to drive 
it away, it would cross the stream, but ere long 
would come tramping back again. Missouri, 
who was tethered close to us, would prick up 
his ears and arch his neck, and look at u.s in a 
very expressive manner, whenever he heard 
this intruder in motion. As to ourselves, the 
worst apprehensions we entertained from this 
visitor were that it would trample our things to 
piece? that lay scattered on the beach. Neither 
of us being able to sleep much, we were glad 



when the dawn came, and hastening to replen- 
ish our fire, and take a hasty cup of tea, we col- 
lected our disjcrta membra and prepared to start. 
I missed, however, a large towel I had used the 
preceding evening, which I remembered well 
having spread out over a bush before I supped ; 
and my son assuring me that he had not remo- 
ved it, we came to the unavoidable conclusion 
that our nocturnal visitor must have taken it. 
Just before we turned down the bank to go to 
the river, looking up the woodland road we had 
travelled, I saw sometliing like a parcel lying at 
a distance on the ground, and going to it, found 
it was my towel, quite wet and rolled up in a 
very odd manner. Casting my eyes round, I 
saw a cow in the woods looking at me, the 
identical animal that had annoyed us during the 
night : she had taken the towel and amused 
herself with chewing it, until she found she 
could make nothing but a towel of it, and had 
then dropped it. These animals sometimes 
stray to great distances from the settlements. 
I was glad to find my towel ; and having wash- 
ed it well at the river, and made up a little fire 
to dry it, we finally crossed the stream and pur- 
sued our journey. 

We soon rose again to the table-land, and 
got upon our old ground, the calcareo-siliceous 
rock : it was a fine open country, and very ex- 
tensive ; and the trees were so far asunder 
from each other that we could have imagined 
ourselves travelling through some park. Here 
we saw the first ivory-billed woodpeckers {Pi- 
cus principalis), a beautiful bird, not found far- 
ther north than this part of the country. About 
10 A.M. we came up with a sorry-looking horse, 
with a saddle on his back, grazing without a ri- 
der ; and two miles farther found a man, with 
a gun by his side, bleeding, and lying apparent- 
ly senseless on the ground. At first we thought 
he had fractured his skull by a fall from his 
horse, and began to consider what we could do 
for him ; but we soon found that he was beast- 
ly drunk, and had probably fallen from his horse 
because he was unable to keep his seat. We 
therefore left him to get sober, as probably his 
horse and himself were accustomed to freaks of 
this sort. Towards noon we were evidently 
advancing to a part of the country which was 
on fire, and soon became enveloped in a dense 
and distressing smoke. Our eyes became so 
sore that it was very difficult to drive, and the 
horse suffered as well as ourselves. Many of 
the dead trees had been burnt so near to the 
ground, that they had fallen in various places 
across the path, which obliged us to wind about 
as well as we could amongst the tall trees on 
fire — that were here rather too thick for our 
safety — under constant apprehension that some 
of them would fall upon us. The severe ner- 
vous headache I got during this morning's drive 
was almost insupportable ; the smoke was black 
and dense, and filled our eyes and our nostrils. 

Worn out with pain and fatigue, we reached 
a Mrs. Harris's in the afternoon, and were glad 
to remain here the rest of the day, although we 
had only made fifteen miles. She was a widow, 
with some sons and daughters, and we were kind- 
ly received, but all that they had to offer us was 
bad fried bits of pork, with worse bread, and no 
milk. Towards night the fire gained upon the 
country so fast, that the family became alarmed 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



85 



for their fences and buildings, and all hands 
were turned out to occupy themselves in wliat 
they called " fighting the fire." Night having 
fallen, we could see a fiery horizon through the 
forest in every direction, and hear the crackling 
of the advancing conflagration. It was a most 
interesting spectacle, and, notwithstanding my 
indisposition, I was out until a late hour ob- 
serving it. We were upon an elevated table- 
land, «)vered with dry autumnal leaves, grass, 
and sticks, upon which stood numerous dead 
and dry trees killed by previous fires. Not a 
quarter of a mile from the house was a nar- 
row edging of bright crackling fire, sometimes 
not more than two inches broad, but much wider 
when it met with large quantities of combusti- 
ble matter. On it came in a waving line, con- 
suming every thing before it, and setting fire to 
the dead trees, that, like so many burning masts, 
illuminated the scorched and gloomy background 
behind, and over which the wind— against which 
the fire was advancing— drove the smoke. Ev- 
ery now and then one of the flaming trees would 
come to the ground : and the noise thus pro- 
duced, the constant crackling of the devouring 
element, the brilliancy of the conflagration, and 1 
the extent of the spectacle, formed a picture 
that neither description nor painting could do 
justice to. The wild turn our minds had caught 
from the scenes we were daily passing through 
was singularly increased by this adventure, and 
amidst many exclamations of admiration we re- 
tired late in the night to the house. I measured 
the progress of the fire, and found that it ad- 
vanced at the rate of about a foot a minute, 
leaving every thing incinerated behind it, and 
casting a beautiful warm light into the forest ! 
in front where we stood. To "fight the fire" 
means to beat this edging of flame out with 
sticks, which it is not difficult to do when it 
first begins ; but when it has extended itself 
several hundred yards, it is generally beyond 
the power of a very few individuals to accom- 
plish. Upon this occasion the line of fire in 
front of the buildings was extinguished, but not 
Avithout great exertions. 

Fires of this kind are much dreaded by the 
agricultural settler. If his buildings and fences 
are burnt, his cattle and swine destroy what lit- 
tle crop he has, and at any rate, the advancing fire 
destroys the mast about the country, upon which 
many depend for the subsistence of their stock, 
which often have nothing else to eat : for the 
small settlers have no fields, with the exception 
of one or two in which they raise their Indian 
corn ; they raise no wheat, no rye, no oats ; 
they have no meadows, and, of course, no hay 
or straw ; the little fodder they have they save 
from the leaves of their corn-stalks ; and there 
being nothmg for the cattle at the homestead, 
they roam about the country to pick up the 
mast ; the which if it fails, they get so little to 
eat at the farm that few of them survive the 
winter. Those who live near the corn-brakes 
are more fortunate, the leaves of the miegia be- 
ing always green, and affording a good deal of 
nourishment. 

Mrs. Harris's cabin was a double one, and of 
course had two rooms ; a very proper arrange- 
ment, as there were both males and females in 
the family, and in one of these rooms were two 
beds When we came in from "fighting the 



fire," she pointed to one of the beds and said it 
was for me ; and my son, taking it for granted 
that the other was for himself, immediately turn- 
ed down the clothes, a movement which he was 
not long in discovering was somewhat prema- 
ture, for our hostess told him that was her own 
bed, and that she was going to sleep there. We 
had no ground for contesting the matter, so lay 
down in our great coats as we were fiecpiently 
in the habit of doing, Mrs. Harris honouring us 
with her company in the adjoining bed, her two 
sons lying down on the floor, whilst the young 
ladies very properly kept the other room exclu- 
sively to themselves. In the morning the good 
old lady asked me if I could give her some to- 
bacco, as she was fond of smoking a pipe, and 
appeared very much disappointed when I told 
her I never used tobacco in any form. Take 
them altogether, they were an amiable and good 
family of people, and not without the means of 
living comfortably if they only knew how to set 
about it. 

From this place we drove about eight miles 
and descended to the valley through which the 
Currant River flows, a beautiful pellucid stream 
of from 70 to 80 yards wide, in the territory of 
Arkansas. This river is deep, and contains a 
great variety of fine fish ; salmon from 20 to 
30 lbs. weight, large red horse suckers {Catas- 
tonmsl) 10 to 15 lbs., buflfalo, drum {Corvinal), 
perch, and large catfish of excellent quality. 
The water of this river, coming from the sili- 
ceous country to the north-west, is so limpid 
that fish are seldom caught except in the night- 
time. Having crossed the river in a ferry-btjat, 
we stopped a short time at a very decent hiouse 
of entertainment, wherewith the aid of our own 
tea and sugar we made a tolerable breakfast. 
On the banks of the stream I found non-fossil- 
iferous beds of horizontal limestone with a good 
deal of chert in them, and was fortunate enougli 
to get a few rare specimens of the genus unio.* 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

The "Military Road"— Eleven-Mile Point River— Obli- 
ging conduct of Widow Newlund — The advantages of 
"camping out" — Our front and hind Wheels quarrel; 
the liind Wheels turn back — Mr. and Mrs. Meriwether 
— Two suspicious Travellers — Murder of Mr. Childers — 
E.xtraordinary Spectacle produced by wild Pigeons — 
Bury the remains of Mr. Childers. 

Feom this place we were happy to learn that 
a road had been cut out, through the territory 



* The following fact, which is illustrative of the econo- 
my of nature, may be found interesting to cunchologists. 
Towards the sources of those streams which take their rise 
in and flow exclusively over siliceous minerals, or where 
calcareous matter is comparatively scarce, I found that 
many of those varieties of the shells belonging to the genus 
XJnio, which have been considered by some zealous cunchol- 
ogists as distinct species, were wanting, with the exception 
of a few that conformed in their external appearance to 
those simple types found in the Schuylkill of Pennsylvania, 
the Rappahannock of Virginia, and other Atlantic streams. 
But where the streams, after leaving the siliceous beds, had 
penetrated deeply into the hills amongst the calcareous beds, 
or had risen almost amongst the calcareous beds at the 
eastern slopings of the highlands, as some of them do, there 
numbers of those beautiful varieties wanting in the sdiceous 
districts, and which abound in the Cumberland and Ohio 
Rivers, were always found. To minds not indoctrinated in 
the mystery of specie making, it appears probable that the 
external arrangement of a testaceous covering, which is so 
much relied on by specie makers for establishing species in 
the place of varieties, may, in a very great number of cases, 
be due to the presence or absence of calcareous matter. 



86 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



of Arkansas, by authority of the government of 
the United States, called the " MiUtary Road." 
Entering upon it, we found the trees had been 
razed close to the ground, and that the road 
was distinguished by blazes cut into some of 
the trees standing on the road-side, so that it 
could not be mistaken ; a great comfort to trav- 
ellers in such a wilderness. For a few miles 
we pursued it through a fine bottom, then got 
upon the horizontal limestone we had seen at 
the Currant— which is probably the equivalent 
of that at Herculaneum — and at length rose to 
the level of our old friend the calcareo-siliceous 
rock, where many rocky knolls appeared, alto- 
gether petro-siliceous. Fourteen miles from 
the Currant we crossed " Fourche de Thomas," 
i? a deep fourche, or creek in the forest, but pass- 
f ing here by the name of " Fourche de Mas," 
according to the French method of abbreviation. 
We passed it by an excellent wooden bridge 
constructed in the best style, and had a good 
view of the ledges of horizontal limestone crop- 
ping out on the bank, which a little farther on 
we found was overlaid by the siliceous rocks, 
that soon presented nothing but quartz, horn- 
stone, chert, and opaque and agatized flints. 
One or more settlers here having quarrelled 
about the direction of the Military Road, have 
taken the liberty to cut roads resembling it, and 
blazed the trees, to tlieir own cabins ; in conse- 
quence of this we got out of our way, and after 
driving sixteen miles, reached at a late hour a 
Mr. Russel's, who moved his family in here about 
twenty-four years ago, among the earliest Amer- 
idacs who came to the territory of Arkansas. 
Afe We were approaching the place, we saw two 
wild-looking urchins of boys trailing a beeve's 
head through the woods to bait a wolf-trap ; that 
anmial abounding about here, and being fre- 
quently caught in that way. 

Last night we had the pleasure of Mrs. Har- 
ris's company in our bed-room, and this night, 
soon after we had retired, old Mrs. Russel, a 
discreet matron of at least seventy, accompanied 
by a sickly, unhappy-looking girl, of, perhaps, 
eighteen, came into our room, where there 
were three beds, upon one of which I was laid 
down, and my son upon the other. Without 
uttering a word, these amiable ladies very de- 
liberately went through the ceremony of un- 
robing and getting into the other bed. This to 
be sure was an unexpected treat ; I thought my 
son would never have done laughing, and cer- 
tainly I never saw anything done with more 
nonchalance. 

Pursuing our journey the next morning, we 
found an undulating country, the horizontal non- 
fossiliferous limestone always in the valleys, 
and the siliceous rocks on the high lands. We 
found no fossils here ; it would almost seem as 
if the waters which deposited all these beds 
had been too hot to admit of animal life exist- 
ing in the mineral matter. At Eleven- mile 
Point River, another beautifully pellucid stream 
about 130 yards broad, running through a fer- 
; tile bottom, we stopped to breakfast upon our 
I , own provender, in a sorry hovel. There was 
no man to attend the ferry, and we were obliged 
to cross the stream in an awkward flat boat 
jondiicted by a girl about 16 : the landing was 
an exceedingly bad one, and in making it we 
harely escaped ruining both horse and carriage. 



The country from hence was rough and hilly 
for six miles to Jackson, a wretched place which 
passes for the county town, and which is situa- 
ted — why I know not — at the inconvenient dis- 
tance of a mile from a beautiful transparent 
stream called Spring River. From hence we 
drove fourteen miles over a country somewhat 
less hilly, and part of it in open woods, to a 
widow Newland's, where we were most misera- 
bly provided for, and shown to a wretched, flock- 
bed, neither long enough nor wide enough for 
two to lie down upon ; which, perhaps, was the 
reason why the good, considerate old lady did 
not favour us with her company. 

Early in the morning we gladly started again ; 
we had passed a bad night and got nothing to 
eat, and it was clear we should have fared much 
better if from the first we had relied entirely 
upon ourselves, and had " camped out" at nights. 
We could have purchased meal and chickens at 
some of the farm-houses, and could have made 
a hearty repast of them at the end of the day. 
" Camping out" to be sure is not always as 
comfortable as sleeping under a roof, having in 
the winter season many disadvantages ; still 
even then there is much to be said in its favour, 
and at any rate you don't find old widows every 
night in the woods ; but it was important to 
consider our horse ; he w'anted food and a stable 
at night, and we were obliged to seek one for 
him. 

Jogging along we came to a rather deep and 
dry bayou, with a very steep descent down into 
it, and this part of the business we achieved 
exceedingly well with both of us in the waggon ; 
but Missouri being rather too confident made a 
dash to get up the opposite bank, and my son 
who had the reins aiding him lustily with the 
whip to get out of the bayou, the horse, just at 
the edge of the bank, made a desperate effort, 
and successfully carried my son, the shafts, and 
the front wheels for some short distance on our 
route ; as to myself, I philosophically took the 
part of the hind wheels, which, released from 
all restraint, incontinently retreated back again 
with me to the bottom of the bayou. It would 
have amused a third person to have observed 
us when we met again, looking at each other 
upon the occasion of so melancholy a dismem- 
berment of the machine that we so much de- 
pended upon. But our discomfiture was so pal- 
pable that no rooin was left for doubt or hesita- 
tion, and we came instantly to the conclusion 
that all other business must give place to wag- 
gon-mending : so setting resolutely to work, we 
dragged the hind wheels up the bank, cut some 
stout stuff to splice our shafts, that were broken 
clean from the axle-tree, and making use of the 
ropes that we had happily furnished ourselves 
with, in about three hours we got under way, 
though in such a crippled state, that we were 
now obliged to walk, a punishment too light for 
having been so inconsiderate as to sit in the 
waggon whilst the horse was drawing it out of 
the bayou. Luckily the fore and hind wheels 
kept upon tolerably good terms during the rest 
of the day, except occasionally when we were 
going down hill. 

We were now on rather a flattish country with 
open woods, and flocks of parroqueets scream- 
ing around us. Being in advance about a mile, 
and very near the bank of Slraioberry River, 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



87 



I heard the cry of a wild goose, and getting a as well as he could by hunting, and trading, and 
glimpse of him through the bushes, as he was ! raising a patch of corn. He said that the track 
trumpeting on the other side of the stream, 1 1 by which we had come to his cabin from the 
took It for" granted he was calling us to break- main-road, was part of the ancient Indian path 
fast, and firing at him put a ball into his neck j or trail from Vincennes on the Wabash to 
close to his head, a lucky shot that 1 could not ] Nachitoches in Mexico, and had been adopted 
have made perhaps once in twenty times. 1 1 as the general road by white people moving in 
immediately rushed through a ripple of the river that direction. This was the reason why so 
to secure my prize, and seeing a cabin not far i many desperate men from all quarters, Span- 
ofTwent there to wait for my son and inquire if iards, Frenchmen, Americans, and other out- 
they bad any meal, but the people were steeped laws, had settled near it, and that the greater 



in poverty and broken down by fever and ague. 
We however made a breakfast of what we had. 



part of the deserted cabins we had seen h 
been inhabited by them. There, under the pre- 



and were too glad to procure a feed of corn for tence of entertaining travellers, they got them 
our horse. Before leaving the place I went into their cabins, and olten murdered them if 
down to the river again, and c(dlected a great they had anything to be plundered of 
many unios resembling those of the Cumber- j Wliilst he was thus entertaining us his dogs 
land, but with a deeper flesh-coloured nacre in- • began to bark, and going to the door he found a 
side. After breakfast I drove the horse, my tall, thin, pale young man, with a dirty blanket 
son preferring to walk, and proceeding through { coat on, and a rifle in his hand, who asked if he 
a fertile flat country, a very heavy ram set in ; i could get any milk and bread. He was very re- 
the old saying, that it never rains difficulties j luctant to enter the house, but at length came 
but it pours, was now verified, for in ascending in, and certainly his appearance was very for- 



hill the coupling pin of the fore part of the j lorn 
carriage came out, and the front and hinder 
wheels again separated, and brought us to a 
stand. This was a day of great trouble : we con- 
trived, however, soaked through as we were, to 
drag our waggon on with various luck, and in the 
evening took shelter at a settler's called Meri- 
wether, ten miles from the Strawberry. 

Mr. Meriwether's log-cabin was at the top of 
a hill a short distance from the main-road ; he 
seemed to be a hearty good-fellow, for he as- 
sisted us with great alacrity to get our tilings 
out of the rain, and to take care of our poor 
horse, who was very much jaded. On going 
into the house we were made acquainted with 
a person he called Mrs. Meriwether, but who 
from her great height, which was six feet two 
inches, an extraordinary dark, bony, hairy face, 
and trimmings to match, I should have taken 
for some South American grenadier in women's 
clothes. Here, seated before a rousing fire, we 
soon contrived to dry ourselves, and with the 
aid of some of their milk, corn meal, and fried 
pork, and our tea and sugar, managed to make 
a hearty supper. Our appearance was the 
greatest godsend imaginable to these worthy 
people ; they were two of the greatest talkers I 
ever heard, had not seen any travellers for a 
long time, and now a fine opportunity occurred 
of delivering everything they had to say. The 
only great difl^culty they laboured under was, 
that both wanted to talk at the same lime. 
When Mr. Meriwether had fairly entered upon 
one of his yarns, she would cut in upon him 
with " Well, but, John, I've heer'n that so often 
BOW ;" upon which he would say, " Jist give me 
a chance to git through, and I swar you shall 
have a chance too ; ride and tie, you know, 
that's fair." 

Our host said that he had been once a soldier, 
and that he was a relative of Captain Meri- 
wether Lewis, the associate of the venerable 
Captain Clarke of St. Louis, in the exploration 
of the country west of the Rocky Mountains, 
and that he was with Captain Lewis when he 
destroyed himself in Tennessee. He told me 
that he had led an adventurous and merry life, 
had not laid up a dollar, and was one of the 
earliest settlers in Arkansas, where he got along 



His story was, that himself and a com- 
panion, with the intention of hunting a few 
hours, had separated from the waggons, bound 
from Illinois to Texas, in which their relatives 
were, and that they had never been able to find 
them again. This happened three weeks ago 
after leaving St. Louis. Herculaneum was the 
only place he could name as one which they 
had passed through, but of the names of the 
rivers and creeks he did not remember one. 
Upon asking where his companion was, he said 
he had left him at the foot of the hill. Our host 
gave him a small quantity of sweet potatoes ; 
and upon his saying that they had no money, 
I gave him half a dollar to pay their ferry over 
White River, which was not far off When he 
was gone, old Meriwether and his wife thought 
the story a very unsatisfactory one ; they could 
not conceive how they could have crossed the 
St. Francis, the Currant, and Strawberry rivers, 
without hearing their names, and therefore pro- 
nounced them to be a couple of vagabonds, who 
had seen us on the road, and were now dogging 
us with evil intentions. I was not quite con- 
vinced of this, but listened willingly to the ad- 
vice of our host to us to be vigilant. He said 
that although there were a great many respect- 
able settlers in the country now, yet there was 
"a heap of villains" in it; and mentioned a 
place on the Mississippi, called Helena, which 
was in the territory of Arkansas, where all sorts 
of "negur runners," counterfeiters," "horse- 
stealers," " murderers, and sich like," took shel- 
ter "agin the law." Nothing was easier, he 
said, than for two fellows that were good marks- 
men to pick off, with their rifles, two travellers 
like us when we were not thinking of it. These 
monitions he followed with a relation of the 
story of a Mr. Childers, which was harrowing 
enough. 

This person, it appears, was an old bachelor, 
and a man of some property ; a few years ago, 
being on a journey, be slept at a man's on the 
south side of White River, whose name was 
Couch, and pursuing bis journey the next morn- 
ing, was dogged to within two miles of Meri- 
wether's cabin, and murdered when he was 
asleep at his bivouac ; " and theie tiie old man's 
bones are to this day," said Meriwether. I ex- 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



pressed here in strong terms my surprise to 
him, that knowing these things he had not given 
the remains a decent hurial. He replied that he 
had ollen thought of it, but had never done it. 

The hour of rest being come, we were shown 
to a part of the cabin which was quite out of 
repair, and where the weather came in freely 
enough, for it rained in torrents the whole night. 
We were, however, alone, and did not neglect 
our host's advice to he vigilant. The appear- 
ance of Mr., and especially of Mrs. Meriwether, 
would have done credit to any melodrama; that 
of the pale-faced young fellow was quite in 
keeping, and these stories of outlaws, murders, 
and especially the admitted fact that the re- 
mains of a murdered man were yet unburied in 
the neighbourhood, all made me thoughtful and 
careful too. I had heard of Helena when in 
Tennessee ; it had been described to me as a 
sink of crime and infamy, and we were now not 
far from it. Placing, therefore, our trunks 
against the door, we prepared ourselves as well 
as we could for any emergency before we laid 
down to sleep ; but daylight broke with a clear 
sky, and on going into the kitchen we found 
our two hosts just as talkative and obliging as 
ever. I therefore soon got over my suspicions ; 
and finding that Meriwether was not only able 
but willing to mend our waggon, I restored him 
entirely to my good opinion. 

A new and very interesting spectacle now 
presented itself, in the incredible quantities of 
wild pigeons that were abroad ; flocks of them 
many miles long came across the country, one 
flight succeeding to another, obscuring the day- 
light, and in their swift motion creating a wind, 
and producing a rushing and startling sound, 
that cataracts of the first class might be proud 
of. These flights of wild pigeons constitute 
one of the most remarkable phenomena of the 
western country. I remember once, when 
amongst the Indians, seeing the woods loaded 
from top to bottom with their nests for a great 
number of miles, the heaviest branches of the 
trees broken and fallen to the ground, which was 
strewed with young birds dead and alive, that 
the Indians in great numbers were picking up to 
carry away with their horses: many of their 
dogs were said to be gone mad with feeding upon 
their putrefied remains. A forest thus loaded 
and half destroyed with these birds, presents an 
extraordinary spectacle which cannot be rival- 
led ; hut when such myriads of timid birds as 
the wild pigeon are on the wing, often wheeling 
and performing evolutions almost as complicated 
as pyrotechnic movements, and creating whirl- 
winds as they move, they present an image of 
the most fearful power. Our horse, Missouri, at 
such times, has been so cowed by them, that 
he would stand still and tremble in his harness, 
whilst we ourselves were glad when their flight 
was directed from us. 

Whilst Meriwether was assisting my son to 
repair our waggon, I went, under the guidance 
[ of a little boy, the only one of their children 
who had survived the efl^ects of the malaria, and 
who was recovering from a broken arm that 
had been badly set, to look for the remains of 
Mr. Childers. We found the place where he 
had been murdered, and after a very long search 
amidst the dead leaves and rubbish, which a 
little stream balled the Curie had carried there, 



and near to which we had bivouacked, we at 
length found a sort of heap of what appeared to 
be soil, and taking some of the earthy matter in 
my hands, I perceived a rank smell of putrefac- 
tion Removing the heap with a spade I had 
brought, I found what remained of the skeleton, 
two shoulder blades, two thigh bones, two leg 
bones, and one arm bone. The rest had prob- 
ably been carried away either by the wild beasts 
or by the stream at some time of high flood. 
Having collected all the remains I could find, 1 
dug a grave on the spot where he had been sleep- 
ing when he was slain, and there deposited them 
in their proper order, thus rescuing them, as far 
as I could, from further dishonour. I then placed 
a stone over the grave, and having charged my 
little assistant to take care of it, and to put the ' 
other bones in it if he should find them, I gave • 
him a dollar to encourage him, and returned to 
the cabin. 

Mr. Meriwether informed me that in the hills 
about this part of the country- there is a surpris- 
ing quantity of micaceous oxide of iron — of 
which I had shown him specimens ; and I found, 
from his conversation, that the River St. Fran- 
cis, which empties into the Mississippi, and the 
Big Black, which empties into White River, are 
very much choked up with rafts, the which if 
they were cut out and the country drained, 
several millions of acres of rich bottom land 
would be reclaimed. There is galena also in 
this part of the country ; a mine of which has 
been opened somewhere up the Strawberry 
River. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

Description of White River — Judge Tucker's Cabin ; his 
account of the Murder of Childers — Account of the first 
Judge Lynch, and the state of Legal Practice in his 
Court — A successful Speculation in Lead— Clock Ped- 
lars insinuating Persons— White River Mountain— A 
Rutlian of the first order. 

Having repaired our waggon, we bade our 
entertainers good bye, and proceeded through a 
pretty undulating country to the settlement of a 
Mr. Tunstall, an enterprising person of this dis- 
trict, who lives in a tolerable house, built on a 
well-chosen and pleasant situation. Here I saw 
a fine field of wheat. But Mr. Tunstall being- 
from home, we drove on towards White River, 
through a tolerable road in sandy barrens, with 
trees far apart. A great change in the climate 
was here obvious : the trees, whose leaves 
were all dead and had fallen when we left St. 
Louis, were here green, as well as the shrubs ; 
and various species of oak began to appear that 
we had not seen before. As we proceeded 
through these barrens. I got a glimpse of the 
man in the dirty blanket coat who had called at 
Meriwether's last night ; but as he disappeared 
almost immediately. I thought it was possible 
that he and his companion might have dodged 
behind .some trees which appeared very thick 
some distance before us. Although I did not 
fully partake of the prejudices of Meriwether 
against these men, who really might be honestly 
pursuing their way to Texas, yet I thought it 
prudent that we should be on our guard ; for the 
place, being a wilderness, without a human 
being to hear testimony to any thing, or to re- 
ceive assistance from, was very opportune to 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



do us mischief. We accordingly concerted our 
plan. My son was to remain in the waggon, 
coming slowly along, and if he was attacked 
was to abandon the waggon if necessary, and 
come to close quarters with the axe ; whilst I 
was to enter the woods quietly in advance of 
my son, but always sufficiently near to him, and. 
rifle in hand, was to turn and discover their 
flank, and act accordingly, if I saw symptoms 
of treachery. 

The strange conduct of the man we had 
spoken with, the unwillingness of the other to 
show himself, the fact of their not having slept 
at a house Meriwether had directed them to 
(which we had ascertained), Mr. Meriwether's 
raw-head and bloody-bone stories, and the bury- 
ing of the bones, had rather disposed me to be 
wary and uneasy ; but after advancing a con- 
siderable distance with great caution, and ex- 
amining all the trees on both sides of the road 
without seeing any one, I rejoined my son. A 
couple of miles farther on we saw them to- 
gether ; and hearing our wheels, the unknown 
fellow turned to look at us, and spoke to the 
other, who did not turn round, which we con- 
strued unfavourably, perhaps putting a wrong 
construction upon everything they did, as I ob- 
served at the time. I now determined to get 
before these fellows, and putting the horse on 
at his best pace, with our rifles prepared, we 
came up to them and accosted them. Each had 
a gun ready cocked. The unknown fellow hung 
down his head ; but putting a close question to 
him, he raised it to answer me, and I must say 
that a more hang-gallows-looking phiz I never 
saw. We now pushed on, my son driving, 
whilst I kept my face turned to the men, but 
they made no movement of an extraordinary 
character ; and soon afterwards, the sun being 
set, we entered the ample alluvial bottom of the 
valley of White River, and having traversed a 
canebrake, drove to the ferry. 

This stream, which is very little known be- 
yond the precincts of the territory of Arkansas, 
is one of the most important and beautiful rivers 
of North America. It takes its rise in the 
western edge of that elevated country which 
has obtained the name of Ozark* Mountains, 
and receives several important tributaries, some 
of which take their rise north of 37° of N. lat., 
draining that charming portion of the territory 
of Arkansas which is comprehended in the 
county of Washington ; and pursuing a general 
easterly course to its principal tributary. Big 
Black River, it leaves, near that stream, the 
petro-siliceous highlands to the north, and then, 
after a serpentine course of from seven to eight 
hundred miles, deflects to the south in 34° N. 
!at., to increase the volume of the Mississippi. 
The latter portion of its course lies through 
alluvial lands of the most fertile quality, through 
which it is navigable from its mouth up to 
Batesville, a distance of 350 miles from the 
Mississippi; and with little improvement could 
— it is said— be made so 200 miles farther to 
the westward. The valley of White River, 
where we crossed it, divides the petro-siliceous 
highlands into two portions ; and the river, 
when full, is about 200 yards wide. At this 

* A. comip ion of aux ^res, the French abbreviation 
•I auz Arkansas. 

M 



season the stream was low, but exceedingly 
pellucid, and there was a great margin of beach 
on each side. 

At the ferry we were told we could obtain 
" first-rate accommodation" at a Judge Tucker's,, 
a magistrate who lived a mile farther on the 
road . 

Comforting ourselves with this prospect, and 
forgetting that " first-rate," in a ferryman's 
mouth, might be a qualification only squaring 
with his own taste, we hastened on, and, to our 
great mortification, found the Judge living in 
one of the most dirty and unprovided holes we 
had yet got into, in addition to which his chil- 
dren and himself too were just recovering from 
the malaria. I pitied thetn, for, bred up in dirt, 
it was evident they knew not what cleanliness 
meant ; he himself seemed poor and broken- 
spirited, but was civil and communicative. It 
turned out that he was the magistrate who had 
to inquire into the murder of Childers, the cir- 
cumstances of which, as we learned them from 
him, were as follows : — It was known that this 
unfortunate man had lodged at Couch's, and 
that Couch was under particular obligations to 
him. Many weeks after his departure from this 
man's, a boy going through a cane-brake in the 
neighbourhood of Couch's house, saw, as he 
thought, a bear lying down in the brake, and 
fired at it : believing he had killed it, he walked 
up and found upon examination that it was a 
bundle of clothes tied up, and apparently hid 
away. Upon opening it lie found a great-coat; 
that he remembered Mr. Childers to have worn, 
together with other things, and taking the bun- 
dle to Squire Tucker — our host — he, without 
loss of time, communicated the fact to some of 
his friends. After some deliberation they came 
to the unanimous opinion that Childers had been 
murdered by Couch whilst sleeping in his house, 
and that the bundle, which contained nothing 
but what had belonged to the unfortunate man, 
had been secreted by him. 

Proceeding, therefore, to his residence, they 
informed him of the bundle having been found, 
and charged him with the murder of his guest. 
He stoutly denied the charge, and professed his 
ignorance of the manner in which the bundle 
had got to the cane-brake, admitting at the 
same time that he remembered seeing the 
clothes in the possession of Childers. As the 
man persisted with great energy in this decla- 
ration, and they had no collateral evidence of 
any kind to support their charge, except the 
important circumstance that Childers had slept 
in his hou.se the last time he had been seen, 
they thought it expedient to submit the case to 
the highest legal authority then existing in that 
part of Arkansas. 

This was a very awful personage named 
.fudge Lynch, whose unrivalled ability in the 
science of cross-questioning had often thrown 
light upon the most obscure cases. This talent 
he had inherited from a famous Virginian an- 
cestor of his, who lived when the back settle- 
ments of that colony were also in that happy 
state of Cocagna which flourishes for a while 
in every region that is invaded by the advanc- 
ing population, and where every man, being 
without restraint, does as he pleases, unless a 
stronger man interferes. This ancestor, the 
first Judge Lynch, was a miller and a justice of 



90 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



the peace in the back woods ; he had been there 
from his youth, before the western counties of 
Virginia were organized, was a man of expe- 
rience and sagacity, and was acquainted with 
everything that was passing around him. When 
a " spree" of a desperate kind occurred, and 
the atrocity that had been committed had made it 
necessary for the many to combine against a sus- 
pected individual, the first step was to appre- 
hend and take him before the Judge, where all 
the circumstances of the case, and the proofs 
to support the charge, were entered into. 

If his Honour saw that the evidence was not 
strong enough to send him to the seat of gov- 
ernment with any hope of conviction, and that 
all the trouble and expense would go for no- 
thing, besides giving a triumph to the accused 
party in treating him to a sight of the great 
world, and lettmg him come back whitewashed 
into the bargain, — he used to say, " Gentlemen, 
I swar this won't work no haw, fix it haw you 
will ; and I reckon the shortest way is to git it 
out of him with the kayw hide." The party 
Avas now stripped to the skin, and tied securely, 
with his face and breast close to a tree, so as 
to exhibit the best possible view of his dorsal 
proportions. Two stout fellows, armed with 
knotted thongs made from a tough hide, were 
then appointed to keep the flies from his upper 
and lower parts, and the Judge stood by to 
direct operations. His invariable rule was to 
order the administration of twenty smart strokes 
of the thongs before "axing no questions;" 
this he said " somehaw stirred the man up, and 
put up him upon thinking they were in arnest." 
Now, although the Judge was regarded as a 
consistent person, and always ordered neither 
more nor less than twenty strokes to be given, 
yet it somehow always struck the party most 
interested in counting them that he got forty 
instead of twenty, a discrimination which per- 
haps escaped the Judge, who might have ima- 
gined—the practice being to apply twenty to 
the shoulders, and twenty somewhat lower 
down — that the suffering component parts 
would each keep the arithmetical account, and 
not the entire man. It certainly had the effect 
of producing a perfect conviction that they were 
" in arnest," accompanied with a correspond- 
ing strain of piteous entreaty to stop. His 
Honour would then mercifully ask him "haw 
many more would you like to have before 
you've made up your mind, for thar's a heap 
a-coming, I tell you." But the more the poor 
devil prayed them to believe he was innocent, 
and to cease tormenting him, the more they 
seemed disposed to believe him guilty, and to 
increase his tortures : if the Judge benevolently 
ordered him ten strokes, the recipient— such is 
the discrepancy between theory and practice — 
knew very well that they would come to twenty, 
and so in proportion at every renewal of his 
flagellation. 

Now as it is of the very essence of crime to 
seek a present apparent advantage at the risk 
of bringing down a future terrible evil, so a de- 
ferred death loses its terrors with individuals 
drawn from the lowest classes, when compared 
with present sufferings that appear intermina- 
ble, and thus the unfortunate devils under Lynch 
law sooner or later generally said, in answer 
to the Judge's kind inquiry — which interroga- 



tory he called cross questioning — " haw many 
more do you reckon you can stand nowV 
" Why, Judge, sartin no man alive can stand 
this long." " Then, gentlemen," the Judge 
would tenderly say, " jist give him three kctel 
wales to help it out of the hopper," alluding to 
the grain that sometimes stuck fast in the hop- 
per of his mill, which he thus facetiously com- 
pared to the confession that seemed to stick in 
the man's throat. A confession was generally 
the result, and thus the sagacity and summary 
process of Judge Lynch raised his name to the 
pinnacle of fame, and to this day makes Lynch 
law the terror of those evil doers who, in those 
countries where there is no other law, would 
be without the fear of anything to control their 
actions. 

In this manner the tavern-keeper Couch was 
tied to a tree, and submitted to the searching 
cross-questions of Judge Lynch ; but as my in- 
formant — who was present — told me, he did not 
stand it long, confessing that a man of the name 
of Allen had met with Childers at his house, 
and finding that he had some money with him 
and two fine young horses, had dogged him the 
next day. Two days afterwards he said Allen 
came in the night to his house on the horse 
Childers had rode, leading the other, and bring- 
ing with him the plunder he had got ; upon 
occasion he communicated to Couch that he 
came upon Childers when he was asleep, and 
knocked him on the head with a stake he had 
cut, when Childers sprung on his legs and had 
a hard struggle with him ; but that having 
thrown him down he at length despatched him, 
and stripping the body and dragging it away 
some distance from the bivouac, had brought 
the horses and things away. This man, Allen, 
he said, left the country before daylight for 
Texas with the horse Childers had rode, leaving 
the other horse and the clothes with Couch, 
who told his neighbours that he had purchased 
the horse of Childers before he left his house ; 
and as to the clothes, he had hid them in the 
cane-brake. Notwithstanding this story, and 
his strong protestations that he had had no hand 
in the murder, he was disbelieved, and having 
no prison they put him in a cabin, fastened the 
door, and agreed to watch him. In the morn- 
ing the cabin was found empty ; he had pur- 
chased his liberty no doubt of his guard with 
poor Childers's money, and had made his way 
to that asylum of oppressed Republican hu- 
manity, Texas ; for some time afterwards a 
person returning from that quarter related that 
he had seen him there " doing uncommon well." 
What increases the disgusting brutality of this 
transaction is the fact that this magistrate, 
Squire Tucker, or Judge as they call him, told 
me that he and a coroner's jury went to Curie 
Creek, where they found and identified the 
corpse of the murdered man, and came away 
without burying it. 

It was somewhat curious that whilst this 
story was relating to me, the same tall, pale- 
faced young fellow who had called at Meri- 
wether's the preceding evening, just when he 
was narrating the same murder, put his head 
in at the door, and inquired the road. Again he 
declined coming in when invited, saying he 
had no time ; his companion, as upon the pre- 
vious occasion, never appeared ; and although 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



91 



Tucker told him Ibat there was no other place 
or house to get shelter at for the night, he went 
away. We did not like this proceeding ; these 
fellows would now be aliead of us again, and 
Tucker, on being told of the circumstances un- 
der which we had seen him before, pronounced 
him a bad fellow. 

In the morning of November 12th we started 
very early, and after some time passed the fire 
•where these fellows had stayed during the night, 
and saw their lairs where they had laid down 
upon the leaves. We were now entering a 
country full of thickets, where an ambush might 
be laid at every step. I adopted the plan of the 
preceding day, walking on before, believing it to 
be most prudent not to expose both our persons 
at the same point ; it was probable that if they 
had bad intentions they would be somewhat 
embarrassed at seeing only one person in the 
carriage when they expected to see two ; at any 
rate I thought that being in advance I should 
get the first intimation of their intentions, and 
act more prudently than a younger man would ; 
besides, I wished to give my son the best chance 
possible. How it occurred I know not, for we 
saw no bye-road by which they could have 
turned down, but we never overtook them, 
though a great part of the morning we came to 
a more open part of the country, which ena- 
bled us to push on our horse ahead of them 
again. The movements of these men were 
certainly rather mysterious, for whilst we were 
boiling our kettle at a poor cabin on the road, 
the man who lived there told us that one of 
these fellows had called to ask if we had pass- 
ed, whilst the other went into the woods on ap- 
proaching the cabin, and had taken a circuitous 
course to avoid it. 

For some time we had seen no rocks, but 
here we came upon compact blue limestone, 
furrowed at the edges like that we had seen in 
the neighbourhood of Sparta, in Tennessee, and 
on our journey through Kentucky, running N.E. 
and S.W. on the same strike with those more 
northerly beds. Soon after this we reached a 
settler's of the name of Morton, who had things 
rather more inviting about him than we had 
seen for some time ; so finding that we could 
get good bread and milk, and fried venison — 
which is tolerably fat at this season — we stop- 
ped to feed our horse and boil our kettle again. 
When we came to pay our bill the charge was 
a lit, or the eighth of a dollar, a little more 
than sixpence for both of us ; hut we found a 
difficulty in paying this, for the smallest coin 
we had was half a dollar, and Mr. Morton 
had no coin whatever in the house. He was 
very fair, however, and said he didn't mind, but 
that he was out of lead, and if my son had a 
mind to give him a small bar of lead he had 
taken out of his pocket and placed on the table, 
he would be glad to have it, as he thought it 
was worth a bit. My son had purchased four 
of these small bars at Mine la Mottc to cast 
balls for his rifle, and not being able to do any 
better we gave him the bar, with which he was 
heartily delighted, saying it>. would be worth "a 
heap" of deer skins to him. This was our 
trading debuf, and upon the whole was an affair 
that was creditable to us in a commercial point 
of view, for my son had paid only a bit for the 
whole four bars, so that here was a magnificent 
return of 300 per cent profit. 



Being exceedingly tickled with having Jewed 
our host so satisfactorily in this business trans- 
action, before we went away we generously 
made him a present of another bar on the part 
of Missouri, and thus became entitled to the 
respectable appellation of traders, which had 
been deemed to belong to us on various occa- 
sions ; for the rear part of our vehicle being oc- 
cupied by a large basket containing our cooking 
utensils and muyiiliojis de louche, attracted gen- 
eral attention when we passed the cabins, which 
were all accustomed to be supplied by travelling 
" marchants.'' Wherever we came the inquiry 
was sure to be, " What goods have you got to 
sell ■?" and vvhen we assured them that we had 
nothing at all to sell, the disappointed women 
would cry out, " Why, what owder arth are you, 
if you ain't pedlars 1" Upon one occasion a 
woman screamed out most lustily to us from 
her door, and as we would not stop she ran af- 
ter us, and finding we obstinately persisted in 
giving an unsatisfactory account of ourselves, 
she said, " Well, then, if you ha'ant got nothin 
to sell, I reckon you must be tailors, and that 
you are going about tailoring ;" and I fancy we 
could have got a very good job if either of us 
had been put in the way of cultivating the sar- 
torial bump. 

These worthy people think, if you are not 
looking for land to settle, that you must be ped- 
lars : there are no markets or shopkeepers in 
the country for them to go to, and therefore the 
markets come to them— pedlars to sell goods, 
and tailors to cut out and make their new 
clothes. As to the Yankee clock pedlars, they 
are everywhere, and have contrived, by an as- 
surance and perseverance that have been unri- 
valled from the Maccabees down, to stick up a 
clock in every cabin in the western country. 
Wherever we have been, m Kentucky, in Indi- 
ana, in Illinois, in Missouri, and here in every 
dell of Arkansas, and in cabins where there was 
not a chair to sit on, there was sure to be a 
Connecticut clock. The clock pedlar is an ir- 
resistible person ; he enters a log cabin, gets 
familiarly acquainted with its inmates in the 
shortest imaginable time, and then comes on 
business. 

" I guess I shall have to sell you a clock be- 
fore I go." 

" I expect a clock's of no use here ; besides, I 
ha'n't got no money to pay for one." 

" Oh, a clock's fine company here in the 
woods ; why you couldn't live without one after 
you'd had one awhile, and you can pay for it 
some other time." 

" I calculate you'll find I ain't a going to take 
one." 

The wife must now be acted upon. 

" Well, mistress, your husband won't take a 
clock ; it is most a surprising : he hadn't ought 
to let you go without one. Why, every one of 
your neighbours is a going to git one. I sup- 
pose, however, you've no objection to my nailing 
one up here, till I come back in a month or so. 
I'm sure you'll take care of it, and I shall charge 
you nothing for the use of it at any rate." 

No reasonable objection, of course, can be 
made to this. It is naded up ; he instructs her 
how to keep it in order, and takes leave. But 
what can equal their delight, when, with a 
bright, clear sound, it strikes the hours ! "Weil," 



92 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



they exclaim, " if that don't beat all ! Sartin, 
it is most delightful, curious company !" The 
wife now teaches her husband to wind up the 
clock, and great care is taken of it, as it is a 
deposit, and must be restored in as good condi- 
tion as it was received. Too soon, Jonathan, 
the wily tempter, returns, talks of taking the 
clock down : " it was the best clock he ever 
had, they are such nice people he almost wishes 
it was theirs." Such a friendly and disinterest- 
ed proceeding throws down all the icy barriers 
that prudence had raised between them and the 
shrewd Yankee. Before morning the wife gets 
the husband's consent, and the clock becomes 
theirs for the mere formality of his giving a 
note, payable in six months, for some eighteen 
or twenty dollars, and then 

" If the clock shouldn't go well he can change 
it for another, to be sure he can ; ha'n't he got 
to come that way in the spring T' 

He comes sure enough to dun the poor crea- 
tures, bringing one clock along with him ; and 
as all the clocks have stopped, as a matter of 
course, either because they were good for nothing, 
or because they have wound them up too often, he 
changes the clock at every place he stops, cob- 
bling them up in succession as they come into his 
hands, and favouring every one of his customers 
with the bad clock of his neighbour. The de- 
nouement is not a very pleasant one ; long after 
the clocks have ceased to strike, the constables 
come and wind up the whole concern, and mis- 
tress pays too often with her cows for the in- 
considerate use of her conjugal influence. 

Having made our successful trade with our 
host, we pursued our journey, and soon began 
to ascend what is called the White River 
Mountain, across which a very extraordinary 
road has been made. The person who laid out 
the Military Road, instead of winding round 
this desperate ascent, has, following the exam- 
ple of the ancient Roman roads in England, 
taken the shortest line to get to the top, and 
carried it up at about an angle of 60°. Our 
horse, therefore, came to a dead standstill, and 
could scarcely drag the light waggon up, even 
after we had taken everything out of it ; a not 
very pleasant operation, because we were 
obliged, with great labour, to carry our luggage 
up ourselves in all the worst places. For the 
distance of about 1500 yards, the track, for it 
does not deserve the name of a road, laid over 
immense blocks and fragments of siliceous rock, 
and in the efforts the horse made to drag the 
vehicle over them, we were in constant expec- 
tation of seeing it come to pieces. At the top 
we found the rocky strata thrown out of their 
beds in immense masses, but looking around, I 
observed some portions yet in a horizontal po- 
sition. We now had got upon a table-land of 
great elevation, and went on for ten miles in a 
forest of oak trees, amidst the profoundest soli- 
tude, not even a bird being upon the wing. 
From this we descended to a settler's named 
Caruthers, who has got into a warm, fertile 
bottom, near some of the head waters of Little 
Red River. The leaves of his peach trees were 
still green, and he spoke of his situation as be- 
ing very favourable to fruit. This man strong- 
ly advised ns to abandon the Military Road, 
and to take a new cut, where we should find a 
level road, good lodgings at a Mr. Hornby's, and 



an excellent ford : he said the Military Road 
was very hilly, and the ford to which it led 
rather dangerous. We accordingly followed 
his advice, and after a tedious drive, passing a 
deep ravine where the horizontal sandstone 
was well exhibited, reached this Hornby's after 
night. Here we found abundant reason to re- 
gret having left the Military Road, and discov- 
ered too late that Caruthers, having an under- 
standing with Hornby, had purposely misled us. 
Hornby was a squalid, half negro looking, pirat- 
ical ruffian from Louisiana, living in a wretched, 
iilthy cabin, with a wife to match, and a Cali- 
ban-looking negress and her two children, wha 
were his slaves. This fellow never opened his 
mouth without uttering execrations of the worst 
kind. In this den, which had only one beastly 
room, we were obliged to stay, and suffer the 
low conversation of this horrid fellow. Some 
bits of filthy fried pork, and a detestable bever- 
age they were pleased to call coffee, were set 
on a broken, dirty table, at which, by the light 
of a nasty little tin lamp, into which Madame 
Hornby, after helping herself to the pork, poured 
some of its grease, we all, tulti qvanti, sat on 
two lame benches. We passed a most disgust- 
ing night, the whole party lying down on the 
floor ; and, from the appearance of every thing 
around me, I should certainly, if I had beea 
alone, have expected an attempt on my life. A 
place better fitted for the nefarious practices of 
such a set of desperate-looking human beings I 
never saw. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

Little Red River — A distressed family of Emigrants — A 
new kind of Grist-mill — Black Wolves — A wild Amer- 
ican scene — Reach the Arkansas River — A Tavern at 
Little Rock. 

Great was our satisfaction when day broke 
and gave us light enough to harness our horse; 
hurrying away as quick as we could, we drove 
through a lofty cane-brake— that reminded me 
of the bundle containing Childers's clothes — to 
Little Red River — over which I had to wade to 
find out the ford. The bed of the stream is 
broad, and if the waters had been high we could 
never have got across ; as it was, our horse 
made many difficulties, but my son finally coax- 
ed him over. This was a lesson to us never to 
deviate again from the Military Road, for there, 
at least, good bridges have been established 
over the worst streams. I picked up a few fine 
unios whilst wading across the river, principal- 
ly the same varieties which inhabit the Cum- 
berland. Soon after we crossed the river we 
came to a very had bayou, with a large, danger- 
ous mud-hole on the track, and here we had to 
stop and collect suflicient timber to fill it before 
we durst venture to attempt it, which we did 
successfully ; and continuing on for eight miles, 
we came to the cabin of a settler called Morse, 
where we found his family, eight or ten in num- 
ber, in a very deplorable situation : they had 
emigrated from Tennessee in the month of May 
last, and had been ever since so completely 
prostrated by the malaria, that at one time there 
was not, during two whole days, a single indi- 
vidual of them able even to draw water for the 
family. A more sickly, unhappy set of crea- 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



93 



tures I never beheld ; livid, emaciated, helpless, i 
and all of tliein suffering extreme pains and I 
nausea from an excessive use of calomel : on i 
the floor were laid the father and five of the 
children, still confined to their beds ; but the 
mother, a kmd, good-hearted woman, finding 
that we were travellers, and were without any 
thing to eat, ordered one of the boys, who was 
still excessively weak, to show us where we 
could get some Indian corn, and how we could 
poimd It so as to «iake a hoe cake. He accord- 
ingly took us to a patch of maize, which was 
yet standing, and having provided ourselves 
■with a sufficient number of ears, w^e began the 
operation of pounding it. They had no mill of 
any sort to go to, but had scooped out a cavity 
in the stump of a large tree, over which was a 
■wooden pestle, eight feet long, suspended from 
a curved pole 16 feet in length, with a heavy 
•weight at the end of it. A cross stick was 
fixed in the pestle, about two feet from its 
base ; so putting the grains of maize int-o the 
cavity, and laying hold of the cross stick, we 
pounded away with this primitive contrivance 
■until we tliought our grist was fine enough; 
when, taking it to kind Mrs. Morse, she made 
it into a hoe cake, and baked it before the fire. 
This, with the important aid of a pitcher of good 
milk, and our own tea and sugar — for we had 
nothing else left — enabled us to make an excel- 
lent breakfast. 

These good people, who were half broken 
■hearted, and who sighed after their dear native 
Tennessee, as the Jews are said to have done 
after Jerusalem would not receive any compen- 
sation until I forced it upon them ; but when I 
further divided my remaining tea and sugar with 
her, believing that it would refresh their pros- 
trated stomachs, she said, with tears in her 
eyes, " that if anything would set her old man 
up again, it would be that nice tea ;" and that 
she was at one time going to ask me if they 
might take the leaves that we had left, " but 
that she did not like to do it." So strange are 
the vicissitudes of life ! We had passed the 
right with a family in whose favour I could wil- 
lingly have invoked all the blessings that the 
stoutest hemp that was growing could confer, 
and here, when we little dreamt of it, we had 
become most feelingly interested for the welfare 
of their nearest neighbours ; such an impres- 
sion does suffering goodness make upon the 
heart. 

From hence, passing a pretty stream called 
Brown's Creek, we drove through a tolerably 
level country with a lofty sandstone ridge on 
our right, to a settler's of the name of Stacey, 
about 14 miles off; there was a fine bear's skin 
stretched out at the door, and the skin of an 
extremely large black wolf He told us, that 
whilst he was out on horseback the other day, 
his dog, which had been ranging after some 
game, suddenly came back in great haste, chas- 
ed by seven wolves, four of them black and the 
rest grey. The moment they saw him they 
turned round to retreat, but the dog, encour- 
aged by the presence of his master, gave chase 
to the wolves, who again turned round, and 
came within shot of Slacey's rifle, which 
brought one of them down. The tail of this 
beast was extremely long and black. 

We slept at Slacey's, and, starting early in 



the morning, crossed a steep ridge to a bottom, 
where we found a cabin belonging to one Co- 
vey. As we were passing it, I ol)served a black 
girl throw a wild duck into the road, so I stopped 
and asked the mistress of the house, who was 
standing at the door, why this was done. She 
answered me that they " never ate sich truck, 
because she allowed they had a kind of smell." 
The truth is, that these poor people kill wild 
fowl merely for their feathers, and that neither 
wild ducks nor anything else please them as 
much as bad fried pork, the coarse taste for 
which perhaps, when acquired, makes every 
other kind of flesh appear insipid. From 
hence we ascended a steep hill of ferruginous 
sandstone, after a heavy pull of half a mile ; 
the view from hence was extensive, the whole 
country appearing to he formed into ridges run- 
ning east and west, as parallel to each other as 
those of the AUeghanies. Along this table- 
land we found a tolerable sandy road, tlirough a 
pleasant open wooded country, but very much 
burnt. We stopped to breakfast at Mr. Walk- 
er's, a man who was pretty well to do in the 
world ; he seemed to have an industrious fam- 
ily, and we left the house very well satisfied. 
The improvement in the climate was constant 
as we advanced to the south ; to-day Fahren- 
heit showed 77° in the shade. From Walker's, 
where we got good bread and milk, our horse 
had a rather distressing road for 14 miles ; for 
the first three miles we had two hills to pass, 
almost as bad as White River Mountain, and on 
reaching the top of the second, had a very ex- 
tensive view of a desert wilderness below us, 
about 12 miles broad, perfectly flat, and bounded 
by a lofty ridge running east and west. It was 
an excessively hot day ; in vain we looked for 
anything that indicated a settlement— we could 
see nothing but a dense jungle, which, as we 
had been told, contained no water, except a 
few stagnant pools in the dry bayous. This 
was one of the most striking pictures of wild 
American scenery I had yet seen ; there was 
nothing to break the comprehensive and uniform 
character of this woody desert, save an im- 
mense conflagration that was raging in the dis- 
tance, right in the line of our march, covering 
an immense area of country, and from which 
rose a tremendous dense column of smoke. 
This desert, and the general aspect of the land 
ridges, seemed to portend some change in the 
geological character of the country. 

Into this plain we descended, bent upon get- 
ting through it as quickly as we could, for we 
knew the danger of being enveloped in a confla- 
gratio.n raging in a thick jungle where every- 
thing was dry, and the smoke of which some- 
times destroys even animals before they can 
save themselves. It was painfully hot ; we suf- 
fered exceedingly from the want of water, and 
our horse was in such distress, that, seeing a 
little pool in a low bayou of difficult access, we 
took him out of the shafts, and cutting a pas- 
sage, got him down with some difficulty, where 
he drank, but not eagerly. Despairing of find- 
ing anything better, we determined to try a lit- 
tle of it with some brandy, but the remains of 
dead lizards, and other disgusting animals in the 
putrid mass, made it impossible, and we there- 
fore for the first time took each of us a mouth- 
ful of brandy alone, which refreshed us very 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



much. We passed through a great number of 
laurel thickets in this desert, the abode no doubt 
of many a stout panther ; but it beiug in the 
heat of ihe day, we saw none. To emerge from 
this place we had to ascend another of those 
sharp ridges, but were amply repaid by the deli- 
cious pure air we found at the top. The rocks 
■were now becoming highly inclined, the sand- 
stone was intermixed with narrow seams of 
quartz, and the quartz was not compact, but 
consisted of bundles of imperfect crystals 
closely wedged in upon each other. After a 
most fatguing drive of seven hours, we reached 
a place at night called Great Houses, completely 
knocked up ; here we got something to eat, but 
the wolves came round the house in such num- 
bers, and howled in such an amusing manner, 
that we again turned out in the hope we should 
get a shot at them, in which we did not suc- 
ceed. The road from Memphis to the Indian 
Reservations, on the branches of the Arkansas, 
comes in here. 

Early in the morning we started again, hav- 
ing eight miles before us to Finlay's. In this 
short distance we crossed four severe ridges, 
running east and west ; and here I found that 
the opinion I had formed on seeing the contour 
of these hills at a distance was correct, that we 
had got off the limestone, and were upon a 
quartzuse sandstone, superincumbent on slate, 
which appeared from many circumstances to be 
the equivalent of old red sandstone. This is a 
poor country, badly watered, and every body in 
It sick and miserable. At Finlay's, where we 
got some breakfast, all were ill ; they had ex- 
pended everything they had in the world to en- 
able them to reach this barren region, and were 
now pining to get out of it, without possessing 
the means or the health to do so. The barrens 
that lie betwixt these ridges are settled by the 
poorest classes of Tennessee emigrants ; the 
trees are stunted oaks, there is very little run- 
ning water, and consequently game, which is a 
great help to the settler at first, is scarce. The 
next eight miles, to Kellog's differed little from 
the last ; we had to cross three ridges of ferru 
ginous sandstone, with seams of quartz grow- 
mg into broad veins ; the last was a very tough 
pull for us. During the next eight miles we 
found the country in a shattered slate ; the tops 
of the ridges, as well as their flanks, were cov- 
ered with blocks and fragments of the sand- 
stone, which indeed were strewed along the 
whole line of the road. The strata dipped to 
the south-east, at an inclination of 45°, and 
quartzose ferruginous veins ran in the beds in a 
northeast and southwest course. 

Evening was drawing nigh, when we came 
to a rich black alluvial bottom, upon which, the 
weather having been dry for some time, we 
found a good road. I was well aware what this 
bottom indicated, and a little after sunset we 
came upon the bank of the far-famed Arkansa. 
The river was a delightful object to us ; at 
length we saw the waters gliding along, that 
rise amidst the glens and valleys of the Rocky 
Mountains, and, to our great satisfaction, also 
beheld the town of Little Rock on the opposite 
side of the river, ir. -Aiiich we hoped to find some 
renose ana amusement for a few days, before 
advancing to the Mexican frontier. The river 
was unusually low, and we had to get down a 



very precipitous track to reach the team -boat* 
that was to ferry us across. On board of this 
we led our horse, and soon reached the opposite 
bank, where the ascent was so very abrupt that 
it was with the greatest difficulty we got Mis- 
souri to the top. 

We now drove to a tavern kept by Major 
Peay, but the Major could not take us in, and 
from thence we went to another kept by a per- 
son called Colonel Leech: the Colonel made up 
his mind to take us in, but stated that he could 
"not by no manner of means" give us a bed- 
room to ourselves. He could give us two beds 
in a room where two olher frc7alemc7i slept, and 
that was all he could do. Here then we deter- 
mined to stay for at least one night ; and having 
taken a cup of tea wiiii — prodigia luxuries re- 
rum ! — some heavy dough cakes of wheaten 
flour, and looked in person after the supper and 
lodgmgs of Missouri, we retired to the room 
which we could not exactly call ours. It was 
only half plastered, the door would not shut, and 
the beds were dirty-looking enough ; so we en- 
deavoured to act upon our friend Nidelet's rule, 
that " tout est bon quand il n'y a pas de choix." 
Besides, we had every reason to be grateful, 
and to be more than contented ; we had already 
accomplished a journey of at least 1800 miles in 
safety, and were in fine healih and spirits to car- 
ry us through what remained. Independent of 
this, we had scarcely been houses before a cold 
steady rain came on, and increased to a storm, 
a circumstance that would have embarrassed us 
very much, and would have made it difficult for 
me to give proper attention to a troublesome 
sore throat 1 had taken in picking up unios^ 
wading the streams, and sleeping in wet clothes. 
About three a.m. the two gentlemen who shared 
our apartment with us came to bed. Supposing 
us to be asleep, they continued talking in rather 
an under tone for half an hour, but I had been 
awoke by their entrance, and soon found that 
they had been gambling with a party ; and in- 
deed it was evident from what they said, that 
they were professional gamblers on a visit to this 
place from New Orleans. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

State of Society at LitUe Rock— Don Jonathan— The Rev. 
Mr. Slevenson — Newspapers versus the Bible— Gover- 
nor Pope and his Lady— The Laws of Honour at LitUe 
Rock— A Duel in the Dark— A Bully killed— A Collega 
of Faro and Rouge et Noir — Arkansas Legislators — The 
Speaker murders a member in the body of tlie Hous» — 
His Trial. 

I WAS so fortunate as to obtain my letters 
from the post-office before breakfast, and as they 
all contained agreeable information my satisfac- 
tion was complete, and I went to the breakfast- 
table in high spirits. This territoryt of Arkan- 
sas was on the confines of the United States and 
of Mexico, and, as I had long known, was the 



* The paddles of these ferry-boats are put in motion by 
horses. 

t A territory, in the United Stales, is an extensive dis- 
trici ofcnuntrv, the population of which is not numerous 
enough to justify its admis.sion into the Union liy Congress 
as a Sovereign State. L'.ntil its admission, therefore, it re- 
mains under the protection and jurisdiction of the Federal 
Government, in a quasi colonial state, the governor and 
judicial officers being appointed by the President of the 
United Slates. 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



95 



occasional residence of many timid and nervous 
persons, against whom the laws of tliese res- 
pective countries had a grudge. Gentlemen, who 
had tai<en the liberty to imitate the signatures (if 
other persons ; bankrupts, who were not disjios- 
ed to be plundered by their creditors ; homicides, 
horsestealers, -dnd gaynblers, all admired Arlvan- 
sas on account of the very gentle and tolerant 
state of public opinion which prevailed there in 
regard to such fundamental points as religinn, 
morals, and property. Here, flying from a stor- 
my world of chicane and trouble, they found re- 
pose from the terrors it inspired, and looked 
back upon it somewhat as Dante's storm-tossed 
manner did upon the devouring ocean : — 
" E come quei, che con Icna aftannata, 
Uscito fuor del pelago alia riva 
Si volge a 1' acqua peiigliosa, e guata."* 

Inferno, Canto Piimo. 

Such a community I was anxious to see, as well 
as to observe the form society had taken in it ; 
more especially as a very curious movement 
was now going on from this very territory in re- 
lation ■ to the adjoining province of Texas in 
Mexico, which, being somewhat in want of an 
enlightened government, seemed preparing to 
receive one from those persecuted individuals 
who had shown so much aversion to become 
the victims of civilized society: 

On entering the breakfast- room I found a very 
motley set at table, and took my seat opposite to a 
dignified looking person with a well-grown set 
of mustachios, a round-about jacket, with other 
vestments made in the Spanish fashion, and a 
profusion of showy rings on his fingers. The 
gravity of his deportment was quite Spanish, and 
being informed that he was from New Spain, I 
promised myself a good deal of pleasure in con- 
versing with him in his native tongue about his 
own country : but after bolting what was before 
him with an enviable rapidity — a talent I had 
never before observed in a Spaniard — he left the 
room ere I had an opportunity of speaking to 
him. During the day, however, as I was stroll- 
ing round the place, how great was my surprise 
at seeing Don Bigotes seated on a shopboard 
close to a window, and sewing away cross-legged 
in a most approved sartorial fashion ! This led 
me to make some inquiries about him, and then 
I learnt that he had arrived in Little Rock not 
long before from Santa Fe in Mexico, on a fine 
barb horse with a showy Spanish saddle and 
housings ; and finding that wages were very high 
in Little Rock, he had declared himself to be a 
tailor by trade, and had engaged for a month as 
a journeyman. This certainly was an odd char- 
acter to begin with in Arkansas, hut my amuse- 
ment was infinitely increased afterwards when 
my son informed me that having had occasion 
to want the assistance of an artist in that line, 
he had been to the^shop where the Don worked, 
had had some conversation with him, and that 
notwithstanding his gravity, his mustachios, and 
his rings, he was neither more nor less than a 
Connecticut Yankee of the name of Patterson, 
who hiving occasion to leave the land of steady 
}i;ibits, had straggled to New Mexico, where he 
had practised his art successfully, and having 
mad>' a little speculation in his barb — upon 



' With short and gi.spinp breath the anxious wretch, 
'Sc'ip'd the dcvoiuing waves ;uid gain'd Uie shore, 
Tunis to regard the nubulent abyss." 



which he set an immense price — had got so far 
on his way back again to his native country. 
Such is the plastic nature of Jonathan, his in- 
domitable affection for the almighty dollar, and 
his enterprise in the pursuit of it, that it is far 
from bciing impossible that there are lots of his 
brethren at this time in the interior of China, 
with their heads sliaved and long pig-tails be- 
liind them, peddling cuckoo clocks and selling 
wooden nutmegs. 

Before I left the room one of the gentlemen 
who had slept in our apartment came in, look- 
ing rather frouzily ; there was a great attempt 
at finery about his clothes, and a tremendous 
red beard under his chin : it was impossible not 
to admire him, and equally so not to see that ia 
his haste to coiue down before everything was 
devoured, he had forgotten to wash himself and 
brush his hair. The voice of this worthy was 
precisely like that of Colonel Smith of the Brit- 
ish army, whose adventures have been narrated ; 
and the exquisite manner in which he drawled 
out his ungrammatical absurdities left no room 
for conjecture as to his real character. When 
I asked the landlord who he was, he told me he 
was "a sportsman," a designation by which all 
the bloods who live by faro and rouge et nolr 
are known in Arkansas. 

I was obliged to remain two days i-n this 
house, all the others being full of adventurers, 
who were constantly pouring into the place. 
Decent people, I was told, got into private fami- 
lies ; but, although we applied in several places, 
we could find nobody disposed to receive us : 
our landlord. Colonel Leech, who perceived that 
we were only travelling for information, was^ 
very kind and obliging, but he could not let us 
have a private rooin, and we were, therefore, 
very uncomfortable, walking about the towa 
and passing, I dare say, in the eyes of every 
body for adventurers. At length we heard of a 
elergyman who lived on the skirts of the town, 
and sometimes " took in boarders," so we im- 
mediately hied to the Rev. Mr. Stevenson's. It 
was a nice-looking cottage enough, separated 
from the road by a paling, inside of which was 
standing a somewhat dried-up looking individual, 
in a seedy-looking, light-coloured jacket, an old 
hat with a broken rim on his head, only one eye 
in that, and a rifle in his hand. " Pray, sir," 
said I, touching my hat, " can you inform me if 
this is the Reverend Mr. Stevenson's 1" Upoa 
which he immediately said, "I expect I am the 
Reverend Mr. Stevenson !" That being his 
opinion, it would not have forwarded my pur- 
pose at all to have commenced a dispute with 
him about it, so we immediately entered upoa 
bitsiness. I told him who I was, what my pur- 
suits were, that we had got mixed up with very 
bad society, and that I should be very happy to 
pay any thing for a private room and board in 
his family. Mr. Stevenson turned out to be a 
much better man than his externals indicated : 
he entered into iny situation, presented us to 
Mrs. Stevenson — who had two remarkably good 
eyes in her head — and who not only assigned 
us a roomy bed-chamber, which we lost no time 
in taking possession of, but during the whole 
time we staid in her house was uniformly obli- 
ging to us. Mr. Stevenson had been one of the 
earliest settlers in Arkansas, had travelled in 
every part of it, and had occasionally officiatet^ 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



in the remote parts as a missionary : as he cul- 
tivated a piece of land somewhere near the 
town, whenever he visited it he was in the hahit 
of taking his rifle with him, and this accounted 
for my having seen him armed. 

At the supper-table we first met the rest of 
his family, which consisted of several small 
children, three other boarders, two of whom 
were tradesmen of the place, and a very intelli- 
gent person from Switzerland of the name of 
T . This gentleman's conversation inter- 
ested me very much, and when I had become 
sufficiently acquainted with him' to learn his 
history and adventures, I could not help taking 
great interest in his welfare. He was of a good 
family in Switzerland, had been well educated, 
and had been officially employed in one of the 
bureaux of the national government. In the 
revolution that overthrew the aristocratic fami- 
lies, he and others determined to abandon their 
country and found a colony in America. Form- 
ing their plans upon little other evidence than 
what a map furnished them, they came to the 
conclusion that the most desirable situations 
were to be found betwixt the 34th and 35th de- 
grees of North latitude, and Mr. T and a 

colleague were sent to explore and report. They 
had arrived at New Orleans, and proceeded from 
thence immediately into the interior of Arkan- 
sas, where they had resided for several months ; 
here their funds became exhausted, and, re- 
ceiving no remittances nor communications of 
any sort from their friends at home, they fell 
into a perfect state of destitution, and led a most 
miserable life for a long time in the woods. At 
length they separated, each to provide for him- 
self, and Mr. T arriving pennyless at Little 

Rock, had succeeded in getting some sort of 
employment in the Land Office, where his talent 
as a draughtsman made him very useful. When 
I met him he was half broken-hearted, longing 
to return to his native country, but with no 
prospect before him of ever getting out of Little 
Hock, where the emoluments of his daily labour 
barely sufficed to keep him alive. 

Having thus cast anchor for a few days in a 
<iuiet and safe harbour, I began to look about 
me and collect information. The town of Lit- 
tle Rock receives its name from being built upon 
the first rock, — a slate which underlies the sand- 
stone and dips S.E. at a great inclination — which 
juts out into the Arkansa, in coming up the river 
from its mouth in the Mississippi; it is tolera- 
bly well laid out, has a few brick houses, and a 
greater number of indifferently built wooden 
ones, generally in straggling situations, which 
admit of their having a piece of ground attached 
to them. The population was at this time be- 
twixt 500 and 600 inhabitants, a great propor- 
tion of them mechanics; lawyers and doctors 
\vithout number, and abundance of tradesmen 
going by the name of merchants. Americans 
of a certain class, to whatever distant point they 
go, carry the passion for newspaper reading 
■with them, as if it were the grand end of educa- 
tion. A town in England with a population of 
8000 souls will have a few of the lower classes 
■who do not know how to read at all, but those 
■who are not of the educated classes, and who 
do read, generally apply that noble art, when 
proper occasions present themselves, to reading 
the Bible and religious and moral books. 



Newspapers are too expensive for the poorer 
classes in England, and therefore the minds of 
by far the greater part of them are not distract- 
ed, enfeebled, and corrupted by cheap newspa- 
pers ; and although the exceptions are painfully 
obvious, still it is true that there is not a passion 
in England for reading low newspapers as there 
is in America. Now the only newspapers that 
deserve to be read in England pay a great tax 
to the government, and are only within the 
reach of the opulent classes, those who are at 
ease in their circumstances, and men of busi- 
ness ; but these being conducted by men of ap- 
proved talents and fair character, reflect to the 
public all the intelligence that the inquiring spi- 
rit of a great nation requires, and assist to keep 
down corruption rather than cherish it.* How 
could a town of 8000 inhabitants in England 
support a newspaper printed in the place T 
Where would its useful or instructive matter 
come from 1 Why, from those quarters which 
have already supplied it to those alone who want 
it. If such a town had a newspaper it could not 
be supported, and therefore it remains without 
one. But in Little Rock, with a population of 
600 people, there are no less than three cheap 
newspapers, which are not read but devoured 
by everybody ; for what pleasure can be equal 
to that which, — through the blessings of univer- 
sal suffrage, — those free and enlightened citi- 
zens called the "sovereign people" are made 
partakers of once a day, or at least three times 
a week, on finding that the political party which 
has omitted to purchase their support is compo- 
sed of scoundrels and liars, and men who want 
to get into power for no other purpose but to 
ruin their country"! It seeins impossible that 
there should be any time or inclination for Bible 
reading where this kind of cheap poison gets 
into the minds of human beings; you might as 
well expect to find a confirm.ed Chinese opium 
smoker engaged in the solution of the problems 
of Euclid. In this part of the country it has 
struck me as the worst of all signs, that I have 
never seen a Bible in the hands of any indivi- 
dual, even on a Sunday. 

I have not, however, been in every body's 
house, nor would I infer that every individual in 
Little Rock is to be included in this irreligious 
category. What I have said I would apply ex- 
clusively to what are called the " sovereign peo- 
ple," that mass which it is the business and in- 
terest of political demagogues to mislead and 
debase, for the purpose of directing it — as they 
have too successfully done in many parts of the 
United States — against the virtuous and praise- 
worthy efforts of good men and their families in 
every part of this extensive government ; men 
who struggle to bring their country back to the 
honourable principles that illustrated the period 
of George Washington, but whose long struggle 
will be made in vain until the evil consequences 
of universal suffrage present themselves in such 
an appalling form, that the people, rendered wise 
by great suflfering and experience, will consent 
to surrender to the guidance of men of character 
and property that governing power which is now 
both cause and effect of their blind passions. 



* The " National Intelligenger" of the City ef Wasliing- 
ton well deserves the high character it has everywhere 
acquired. 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



97 



It was my good fortune to become acquainted 
with a lew respectable and agreeable individuals 
here. Governor Pope, the governor of the ter- 
ritory, is an unaffected, worthy person : lie was 
once a conspicuous politician in Kentucky, and 
by some accident has lost one of his arms. 
This gentleman has been of great service here 
in various ways, especially in the judicious use 
he has made of the funds entrusted to him by the 
general government for the erection of a legis- 
lative hall, which is a very handsome building, 
placed in an advantageous situation, on the brink 
of the river, and one of the neatest public build- 
ings I have seen in North America. The Gov- 
ernor showed it tome with great exultation, and 
I complimented him sincerely on the taste he 
had shown. 

He lives amongst the inhabitants in an unpre- 
tending and plain manner, encouraging them to 
use no ceremony in talking to him, and appear- 
ing to me to carry his affability and familiarity 
■with them quite as far as it was expedient to do. 
Ceremony and circumlocution seem to have 
found no resting-place amongst the inhabitants 
of Little Rock ; if they have anything to say to 
you, they come to the point {■pynt as they pro- 
nounce It) at once, and are not very shy of their 
expletives. Soon after my arrival I went to call 
upon his Excellency the Governor, and being 
told that he lived in a small house in a particu- 
lar quarter of the town, I went in that direction, 
and seeing a house which I supposed might be 
the one I was in search of, I knocked at the 
door, upon which an odd-looking man enough 
came to me. Not knowing, after my experience 
of the Reverend Mr. Stevenson, what might be 
trumps here, I touched my hat and said, "Will 
you be so obhging as tell me whether the Gov- 
ernor is in the house T' I fancy this fellow had 
never lived in Belgrave-square, for his answer 
was, " No, I'm — if he is." He told me, howev- 
€r, very obligingly, where the house was, and at 
last I found it, and knocking with my knuckles 
against the door, a dame came, who, as I found 
afterwards, was the Governor's lady. She was 
a strange-looking person for one of her rank, 
and I had been so tickled with the last answer 
I got, that I could not help cherishing the hope 
that she, too, would say something very extra- 
ordinary. With the most winning politeness, 
therefore, I inquired, "If his Excellency the 
Governor was at homel" Upon which, with- 
out mincing the matter, she very frankly told 
me that " he was gone to the woods to hunt for 
a sow and pigs belonging to her that were miss- 
ing." Now this might very reasonably happen 
to a territorial governor in such a practical way 
of life as he was, and still be, as it really was, 
creditable to him. Sows and pigs wilt stroll 
into the woods, and the wolves will pick them 
up if they meet with them. Mrs. Pope had sent 
one of her " negui-s" to the woods upon a pre- 
vious occasion, and the fellow had neglected his 
duty and gone somewhere else ; this time, there- 
fore, she sent the Governor, who, being a man of 
sense, and knowing how little dependence was 
to be placed upon his " negur," and perhaps 
wanting a walk, had undertaken the task of 
driving piggies home. 

Besides the Governor there were other agree- 
able persons with whom I became acquainted ; 
a Colonel a*****, a clever good-tempered law- 
N 



I yer. Mr. Woodruff, the editor of the principal 
' Gazette of the place, and postmaster, was al- 
1 ways obliging, and is one of the most indefatiga- 
i biy industrious men of the territory. At his 
i store we used to call to hear the news of the 
day, which were various and exciting enough ; 
for, with some honourable exceptions, perhaps 
there never such another population assembled 
— broken tradesman, refugees from justice, trav- 
elling gamblers, and some young bucks and 
bloods, who, never having had the advantage of 
good examples for imitation, had set up a stand- 
ard of manners consisting of everything that 
was extravagantly and outrageously bad. Quar- 
relling seemed to be their principal occupation, 
and these puppies, without family, education, or 
refinement of any kind, were continually resort- 
ing to what they called the " Laws of Honour," 
a part of the code of which, in Lfttle Rock, is to 
administer justice with your own hand the first 
convenient opportunity. A common practice 
with these fellows was to fire at each other with 
a rifle across the street, and then dodge behind 
a door : every day groups were to be seen 
gathered round these wordy bullies, who were 
holding knives in their hands, and daring each 
other to strike, but cherishing the secret hope 
that the spectators would interfere. At one 
time they were so numerous and overbearing 
that they would probably have overpowered the 
town, but for the catastrophe which befel one 
of their leaders, and checked the rest for awhile. 
Mr. Woodruff, like most of the postmasters, 
kept a store, and thither these desperadoes used 
to resort ; but it became so great a nuisance at 
last as to be intolerable, and being a firm man 
he determined to put a stop to it. The young 
fellow in question dared him to interfere, threat- 
ened him more than once, and coming to the 
store one evening provoked the postmaster so 
much by his insolent violence, that a scuffle en- 
sued, in which the bully got a mortal wound. 
Mr. Woodruff described the scene to me, and 
showed me the place where he fell, but said 
that he got his death by the awkward use of his 
own weapon. The public opinion sided with 
the postmaster, who was very popular at the 
period of our visit. 

One of the most respectable inhabitants told 
me, that he did not suppose there were twelve 
inhabitants of the place who ever went into the 
streets without — from some motive or other — 
being armed with pistols or large hunting- 
knives about a foot long and an inch and a half 
broad, originally intended to skin and cut up an- 
imals, but which are now made and ornamented 
with great care, and kept exceedingly sharp for 
the purpose of slashing and sticking human be- 
ings. These formidable instruments, with their 
sheaths mounted in silver, are the pride of an 
Arkansas blood, and got tlieir name of Bowie 
knives* from a conspicuous person of this fiery 
climate. 

A large brick building was pointed out to me 
that had been erected for stores and ware- 



* Some of these blonds are fellows of great animal 
courage, if we may judge from the following accoimt of 
an affair which took place on this frontier, and which is 
taken from a published account. 

A specimen of the very first water came on horseback 
to a tavern, and entered a room where some other persons 
were assembled. Throwing his cloak on one side, the 
usual pistols and Bowie knife appeared ; and as nobody 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



houses, but the owner thinking he could do bet- 
ter by applying it to the uses of a more steady 
line of business, rented the large store on the 
ground floor as a drinking shop, commonly 
called here a "groggery ;" here it was the cus- 
tom of the bloods to convene and discuss the 
last quarrel, and to tell how such a one " drew 
his pistol," and then how such a one " whipped 
out his knife ;" adjourning when they had drunk 
to the warehouse up stairs, which they called 
"the college," and which was converted into a 
gambling-room for faro and rouge et noir. I 
had a description given me of some of the 
scenes that took place here by persons who 
were present, which would appear incredible to 
even any gamblers who were not familiar with 
this den of infamy. To this place it was the 
practice to inveigle all the young men they 
could, who had any property or any credit, 
make them mad witli drink (the youth of these 
climes become frantic, not stupid, with the fiery 
potations they use), and then ruin them with 
the most atrocious foul play. Out of this class 
they recruit their infamous gang, and teach 
them how to decoy and ruin others. When 
they have nobody to fleece, they play amongst 
themselves — having no idea of any other mode 
of occupymg the time. Many stories were re- 
lated to me of a trader at the mouth of White 
River, named Montgomery, a finished sportsman 
in every sense, passionately fond of gambling, 
excessively addicted to whiskey, and who al- 
ways used to sit down to the faro table with his 
Bowie knife unsheathed by his side, to insure 
fair play. This man, with some others, suc- 
ceeded in effecting the ruin of a promising young 
officer in the United States service, a Lieuten- 
ant , who was an acting quarter-master. 

He had had the weakness to permit himself to 
become acquainted with some of these wretch- 
es, and although he was a married man, and 
had liis wife with him, became at length their 
familiar companion. Having government drafts 
in his possession, they contrived to defraud him. 
when drunk, of them, to the amount of ten 



seemed particularly overjoyed to see him, he soon broke 
silence by looking at them scornfully and saying, "1 don't 
know whether you are the very lieginning of men or not, 
but I've got 3000 acres of prime land, two sugar planta- 
tions, 150 negurs, and I reckon I can chaw up the best 
man in this room !" 

No one venturing to dispute any part of this statement, 
he proceeded to open his mind a little further. 

" I've killed eleven Indians, three while men, and seven 
painters ; and it's my candid opinion you are all a set of 
cowards !" 

Having thus unbosomed himself, he observed that one 
of the company kept a steady eye upon him, and walking 
up to him, jostled him. 'I'his, as he found out after- 
wards, was carrying it a leetle too tar, for the person he 
was evidently seeking a quarrel with was a doctor, who 
had gone through a variety of adventures, and had been 
on the "pynt of bursting his bylcr" ever since tliis wor- 
thy " begin to carry on." The doctor immediately rolled 
him off, when out came the Bowie knife, which, but for 
the timely interference of the rest of the company, would 
have l)een lodged in the doctor's heart. Now came mu- 
tual defiance, and an instantaneous agieement to '• fiiiht 
it out." The terms proposed by the intiuding swaggerer 
were rather novel, even for courts of lionnur in that coun- 
try ; but the doctor wan not a flinching man, his sieam 
was up, and he told his second to agree to anything that 
was fair for both. There was a room in the house totally 
dark, into which not a cranny of light came, and this was 
tixed upon tor the scene of the mortal combat. The p-Tr- 
ties were novveTicli snipped to the skin, e.xcept liieirtrow- 
sers, their anns and shoulders well greased with Im-d, 
and a brace of loaded pistols and a Bowie knife given to 
each. Thus were they put Into the dark room, with the 



thousand dollars. Such was the infatuation of 
this young man, that finding that he was ruined 
for ever in his profession, he went off with 
Montgomery and a party of the sharpers to New 
(Orleans, to get the drafts cashed that he had 
parted with, together with others that he had 
still left. But it so happened that an active of- 
ficer, who was acting in the commissariat ser- 
vice, heard of this movement, and pushing 
across the country, reached the banks of the 
.Mississippi, far to the south of the Arkansa and 
White River, where the gamblers were to em- 
bark. He had scarce been there an hour when 
a steamer heaving in sight he went on board, 
and to his great surprise found his brother of-- 
ficer and the whole gang of villains on the deck. 
They were thus frustrated in their nefarious 
plans, for on their arrival at New Orleans, he- 
immediately stopped the payment of the drafts, 
and the party returned to White River, where 
the unhappy victim of these scoundrels after- 
wards died of delirium tremens. 

So general is the propensity to gambling in 
this territory, that a very respectable person as- 
sured me he had seen the judges of their high- 
est court playing publicly at faro, at some races. 
The senators and members of the territorial 
legislature do the same thing ; in fact, the great- 
er part of these men get elected to the legisla- 
ture, not to assist in transacting public business, 
but to get the wages they are entitled to per 
diem, and to gratify their passion for gambling. 
A traveller, whom I met with at Little Rock, 
told me that he was lodging at an indifferent 
tavern there, and had been put into a room with 
four beds in it. There he had slept quietly 
alone two nights, when on the third, the day be- 
fore the legislature convened, the house became- 
suddenly filled with senators and members, 
several of whom, having come up into his room 
with their saddlebags, got out a table, ordered 
some whiskey, and produced cards they had- 
brought with them. The most amusing part 
of ihe incident was that they asked him to lend 
them five dollars until they could get some of 



understanding that the butchery was not to begin before 
a signal was made by the seconds outside. For near 
a quarter of an hoiu' after the signal had been given, the 
seconds heard no noise whatever, and were disposed to- 
think the affair would end as it began, in words, when sud- 
denly a pistol went off, and then another. The survivor of 
this .strange duel afterwards stated, that scarce a tread or 
a breath could be heard in the room after tiiey had cocked 
their pistols : he saw, or thought he saw, for an instant, 
the cat-eyes of his antagonist glistening, but they changed 
their place so quickly that he was uncertain, and did not 
venture to fire. At length, however, he fired, and re- 
ceived a shot instantly in return, tlie ball of which lodged 
in his shoulder. Being in great pain, and fe.-uing he 
should faint, he fired a second pistol, when instantly he 
received a second ball in the fleshy part of his thigh. 
He soon became very faint from loss of blood, and after 
trying in vain to support himself against the wall, felt 
on the floor. Silently and slowly the other now ap- 
proached his intended victim, with the knife in his hand 
ready to despatch him. The prostrate man, perceiving 
the wary chiiracter of his adversary, and aware of his 
e.'Jtreme danger, had summoned all his presence of mind; 
grasping his knife firmly, and raising himself cautiously 
up a little, he listened, but could hear nothing approach. 
Moving his upraised arm around, he endeavoured to 
pierce with his eyns mto the darkness that enveloped him, 
when suddenly he saw the same gray eyes glistening in 
front of him, and striking with all his might, he plunged 
his knife through his incautious assailant's heart, who fell 
to the ground. The successHM duellist now called out to 
the seconds to open the door, and entering they found the 
doctor weltering in his blood, but still holding his knife 
up to the hilt in the dead man's body. 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



99 



their legislative " wages." Not liking tins pro- 
position very much, he told them that he was as 
hard up as themselves. They therefore pro- 
ceeded to play on ticiv, sat up almost the whole 
night smol<ing, spitting, drinking, swearing and 
gambling; and at about five in the morning two 
of them threw off their clothes, and came to 
bed to him. 

JVo«f.— This specimen of the legislative qualifications 
peculiar to such a state of society mxy appear strange to 
some persons. Those philosophers, however, who see no 
mockery in giving to wild colonial conmiunities the forms 
of (lovernment which are necessary only to old civilized 
couiitiief, may learn from the following narrative, which 
is strictly true, how the dignity of representative govern- 
ment isexposed to be outniged and degraded by the animal 
man before religion and education liave made him a ra- 



the Legislature of Arkan.sas at Little Rock, one John 
Wilson being Speaker of the House of Representatives, a 
bill came to the House from the Senate, called the fVolf 
Bill. The object of this bill was to give a bounty for the 
destruction of wolves ; and it provided that when any cit- 
izen went before a justice of the peace in a particular dis- 
trict with the scalp of a wolf, he was to receive a certifi- 
cate of the fact, which was to entitle him to a pecuniary 
bouniy from the funds of the territory. By many persons 
this bill was considered to be a job, it being very well 
known, from the experience of previous occasions, that 
when wolves became scarce in the district intended to be 
protected, parties would go out of the territory, even into 
Texas, to hunt for them ; and it was not an unusual thing, 
when wolves were " uncommon scarce," for patriotic in- 
dividuals to cut the .scalp of a wolf into a great many val- 
uable slips, and, fastening a slip to the scalp of a sheep, a 
little disguised, and holding the slip between their fingers, 
to take a solemn oath before the magistrate that this was 
the scalp of a wolf, and that it was killed in the district 
designated by law ; an oath of convenient latiside, for the 
slip held on by was part of the scalp of a wolf, and the 
rest had belonged to a sheep killed in the district. If the 
justice of the peace was an obliging person, and it was 
made worth his while to continue so, the operation was 
a good one, and such a bill as the Wolf Bill was sure 
therefore to have a great many friends. 

Haviiig passed the Senate, the bill was sent to the 
House, where a party, from various motives, being formpil 
against it, it was assailed by all sorts of ridicule. It had 
so happened that another job-law had been passed, called 
the Real Estate Bank. This was a sort of bank the capi 
tal of which was to consist of land, and enabled those en- 
terprising persons who had interest enough to become 
stockholders, to offer land, as a part of the capital of the 
bank, that could not be sold for a penny an acre, or even 
sold at all, with as much success as those that held lands 
ot a good quality, and that were convertible in the mar- 
ket, always, however, provided the commissioners ap- 
pointed to scrutinise into the title and quality of the real 
estate were good-natured. The law, for this reason, be- 
came obno.vious to the suspicion of being a job, concocted 
Jor the purpose of enabling these ingenious individuals to 
convert their titles for land into evidences of bank stock ; 
the conversion of which into money, even at only tweniv- 
five per cent, of its nominal value, was what is called "'.'i 
splendid operation." Amongst the amendments offered 
to embarrass the passage of the bill was one proposed by a 
Major Anthony, that the " signature of the president "of 
the Real Estate Bank should be attached to the certifica-.«- 
of the wolf scalp." At this, the Honourable Colonel .John 
IVilson, the Speaker, t(K)k fire; he was the head and life 
and soul of the Real Estate Bank, and immediately railed 
out to Anthony to ask if he meant to be personal, wlm 
answered that he did not, and going on to explain, u;is 
ordered to sit down. Anthony refu.^ed to take his seat, 
saying that he had a right to the floor for the purpose of 
explaining. But the Speaker, thrusting his hand into hi,-^ 
bosom, drew forth a huge Bowie knife, and brandishinir il 
aloft, called out, with a voice almost inarticulate wit!. 
rage, " Ht down, or I'll make you." Anthony, continniii" 
to keep the floor, now beheld the extraordinary spert.iclr 
of the officer appointed to keep order in the Hoiisp, .Ic 
liberately descending from the Speaker's chair his ri"lit 
liand wielding a glittering blade, and keeping an ev'of 
fixe steadily fixed upon him. As the Speaker advanccH 
with determination inflexibly imprinted on everv feature 
Anthony put his own chair a little on one side, stepped 
back a few paces, and drew his Bowie knife also, Citcli 
ing up the chair to serve as a shield to himself, the S/,enk'r 
rushed upon Anthony, and a fight now began betwixt 
r^^em over the chair, Wilson being stabbed in each arm by 



his adversary, who in the scuffle lost his knife. Anthony 
now iKisiily snatched up another chair to defend himself, 
but the Spciker, peiceivin^' liis advantage, pressed upon 
liim, (laslied the chair up u illi liis left haiid, and, uncover- 
ing Anthony's breast, delilioralely murdered him, by 
thrusting his knife up to llie hill in his heart. As he i 
witliilrew (he knife, the untbituiiale man, without uttering 
a word, fell down dead on the floor, in the presence of his J 
colleagues, not one of whom had interfered to stop this 
atrocious carnage. The ruflian Wilson, having perpetrated 
this deed, looked at his knife, and wiping the blood from 
it with his thumb and finger, retired back to the Speaker's 
desk. 

The proceedings subsequent to thjs murder in a House 
of Representatives were of a piece with the foul transac- 
tion. The House adjourned, and three days elapsed be- 
fore any of the constituted authorities took any notice of 
it. A relative, however, of the murderer having asked 
for a warrant for Wilson's apprehension, a legal inquiry- 
was instituted, to which he came, at the end of some 
days, with four horses harnessed to a sort of carriage, as 
suitable to the dignity of the Speaker, and accompanied by 
numerous friends. All the circumstances of the murder 
were distinctly proved, and although the public prosecu- 
tor proposed to adduce a particular law showing that it 
was not a bailable offence, the Court refused to hear him, 
and admitted the murderer to bail. Agreeably to his. 
recognizance, lie appeared at the session appointed fo/r jjii 
trial, when a motion was made to remove the tfial twaiv 
other county, founded upon the atiidavit of Wilson him 
self and two of his friends, one of whom swore that "from 
the repeated occurrence of similar acts vvithin the last j. 
four or five years in this county the people were disposed \ 
to «cl rigidly," and that therefore it would be unsafe for .'! 
Wilson to be tried there. The Court, upon this, removed 
the cause to another county, and ordered the murderer to 
be delivered to the sheriff of that county ; a mere fiumality, 
for no restraint whatever was laid upon him, and he went 
wherever he please<l, treating people at the dram-shops to 
whatever they liked, and entering into all their debauch- 
eries and extravagance. 

The time for his trial in Saline County being arrived, he 
lodged at the same house, .and ate three limes a day at the 
same table, with the judge appointed to try him ; and, as 
if the law were to be treated upon this occasion with yet 
unheard-of indignities, when the prosecuting counsel, after 
witnesses had been heard, attempted to address the jury,, ' 
a mob was collected at the door of the courthouse, where. . 
a pretended affray was got up, and such a tumult raised; \ 
that not a word could be heard. During the whole of this 
proceeding the judge never interposed his authority to pre- 
serve order, and, when the jury brought in their verdict, 
ordered Wilson instantly to be discharged, who, in the 
open court, told the sheriff " to take the jury to a dram- ; 
shop, and that he would pay for all that was dranle by j 
them and everybody else." Upon this a loud cry of exul- ,{i 
tation was raised, all ran up and shook hands with the ' 
acquitted murderer, and, to complete their outrageous con- 
duct, many of them, accompanied by a majority of the 
jury, when they had finished their orgies, having collected 
Jiorns, trumpets, and all sorts of noisy instruments, paraded 
the streets till daylight, continually assembling at the lod- 
gings of the relatives of the murdered legislator to shout 
and scream and yell, as in triumph over them and over the 
law. 

This account is taken from a narrative of the affair pub^ 
lished at Little Rock. 



CHAPTER XXVIL 

Apology for the Manners of Arkansas— Manner of living 
at Little Rock— Aversion to shutting the Doors— Tertiary 
Deposit— Alluvial Bottoms, and the Species of Plants 
growing there— Visit to the Maminelles— German Emi- 
grants—Geology of the Mammelle Mountain— Enter au i 
immense swampy Plain— Danger of traveUing without a \ 
Guide— Some apprehension of being obUged to treat the ^ 
Wolves— Reach a House. | 

Disgraceful as these manners and practices I 

must appear to Europeans, a.s well as to respect- ' 

able Americans in the older states, it is also true ' 
that although the few individuals in Arkansas, 
vixih whom a stranger is happy to associate, 

sometimes expres.s f.trongly their abhorrence of ; 

them, yet the.se things at present are so much \ 

beyond their control, and pa.ss so constantly be- [ 

fore their eyes, that although they do noi cease * 

to be offensive, yet you perceive' that they lose \ 
with them that peculiar character of enormity ia 



100 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



•which they appear to men trained in well-order- 
ed communities. They tell you, and not with- 
out some reason, that the rigorous criticisms 
•which are fitted to older states of society are not 
strictly applicable here; that this is a frontier 
territory A'hich, not long ago, was only inhabit- 
ed by the hunter, the man who had no depend- 
ence for his existence but by killing wild ani- 
mals; that the class which succeeded to this 
■was composed of outlaws, who sought refuge 
here from the power of the laws they had offend- 
ed ; that where ah absolute majority in a com- 
munity consisted of criminals, gamblers, specu- 
lators, and men of broken fortunes, with no law 
to restrain them, no obligation to conceal their 
vices, no motive to induce them to appear de- 
vout or to act with sobriety, it was not surpris- 
ing that such men should indulge openly in their 
propensities, or that public opinion — which, in 
fact, was constituted by themselves — should be 
decidedly on their side, and opposed to every 
thing that would seek to control them ; that their 
consolation, however, was, that the worst of the 
black period had passed, that the territory was 
now under the government of the United States, 
and that a municipal magistracy was established 
in the town. 

Certainly, it is pleasing to hope that society, 
even here, is in a favourable state of transition ; 
yet, although the benign influence of the general 
government is strikingly manifested, Arkansas 
■will have longer to struggle with the disadvan- 
tages which attend it than Ohio, Kentucky, and 
other frontier States of the Union have had, the 
settlers of which came from a respectable pa- 
rentage, and with industrious views. These 
-communities were never corrupted by the man- 
ners of the Gulf of Mexico, and their territories 
■were never the refuge of outlaws. Amendment, 
therefore, will develope itself slowly in Arkan- 
sas, and society there will, for a longtime, require 
a strong arm and a -/igilant eye, like the way- 
■ward and spoiled child, who is compelled to con- 
form to the hard conditions imposed upon him, 
until the natural love of order and justice is 
awakened in his heart. As far as public morals 
are concerned, things will probably go on for a 
long time in their old course. Demagogues are 
already as busy here as they are in other parts 
of the United States : all the oflices in the terri- 
tory, except the few which are in the gift jaf the 
President of the United States, are elective ; and 
candidates, if they will not wink at the vicious 
habits of the people, have little chance of suc- 
cess. At present, therefore, a great deal must 
be tolerated by the magistrates, for the truth is, 
they are only tolerated themselves upon that 
condition. In time, it is to be hoped that the 
settlement of the territory will bring accessions 
of population from a healthier stock; that ex- 
amples of religion, probity, and sobriety of life, 
•will increase in number ; that new generations 
■will respect and copy them; and that, in the 
end, public opinion will effect a regeneration of 
habits. 

As to the manner of living here, 1 must con- 
fess, that although my stomach appeared to be 
broken in to any sort of fare before my arrival, 
yet I had encouraged the hope that in the capital 
of the territory 1 should find an agreeable change. 
What must forcibly strike a stranger here, is 
the apparent total indifference of everybody to 
■what we call personal comforts. No one seems 
to think that there is any thing better in the 
■«'orld than little square bits of pork fried in lard, 



bad coffee, and very indifferent bread. To this, 
without almost any variety, they go regularly 
three times a day to be fed, just as horses are 
fed at livery. Venison, it is true, is abundant, 
but it is no better than any thing else. A man 
goes into the woods, kills a deer twenty miles 
off. skins it, cuts the haunches, or "hams," as 
they are called, off, hangs one on each side of 
his saddle, leaves the rest behind him lor thr 
turkey-buzzard {Catharlcs Aura, Cuv.), or wolf 
and rides into town. Those who buy the ham: 
know but one way of using them ; they cut sli 
ces from them, Iry them in lard, and send them t.< 
table, hard and tough, and swimming in grease 
I once, and only once, saw part of a saddle o* 
venison brought to table; it had been killed that 
day, and was fat, but the room was cold, the 
plates were cold, and the meat was underdone 
and scarcely warm. Everybody knows that a 
worse state of things than this for venison can- 
not be imagined. My hostess took it very ill in 
me that I would not eat of it. She had "telled 
the man to bring the saddle in for me, and he 
had chopped part of it off with an axe, and had 
left the thin part behind: she had put it in the 
oven instead of frying it, and I wouldn't eat it so 
not no more than I would when it was fried — if 
I didn't beat all !" As to the a^remens of the ta- 
ble, there seemed to me to be only this differ- 
ence betwixt the woods and the town, that when 
you were eating in this last you had bread and 
vegetables, and a roof over your head. Those 
at table with me seemed, however, to enjoy their 
repast as much as if it had been prepared by an 
artist of the first talent. They ate heartily, and 
appeared to be cheerful and contented ; so true 
is it that we are the creatures of education and 
habit, and that the slovenliness and dirt, which 
are so revolting to those who are not accustom- 
ed to them, are not even seen by others. An- 
other confirmed habit ol the country is never to 
shut the doors; during the long summer they 
have this is unnecessary, and they never do any- 
thing that they are not compelled to do ; so that 
when the winter season comes, the family hud- 
dles round the fire with the door wide open, and 
generally five or six pains of glass broken in the 
window, which no one thinks of mending any 
more than of shutting the door. In the interior, 
where you stop for the night, they usually have 
nothing but shutters to exclude the air, glazed 
windows being too expensive and inconvenient. 
In stormy weather, therefore, you are often obli- 
ged to eat your meals by the light of a nasty 
candle of grease, and to get over the day, if you 
are detained, as well as you can by the light of 
the fire. But wherever you go, it is in vain you 
tell the blacks to shut the doors after them : they 
are eternally coming in and going out, big and 
little; so that, at length, you give it up, and try 
to get out of the draft of cold air as much as 
you can. 

The town of Little Rock is surrounded by ex- 
tremely poof land, and from a variety of concur- 
ring causes can never be very populous. The 
river upon which it is situated is hardly navi- 
gable four months in the year, and the sandbars 
upon it are annually becoming more obstructive. 
As a place of deposit for the immediate neigh- 
bourhood, and in virtue of its being the seat of 
government, it may in time become a respect- 
able small town, have good seminaries of edu- 
cation for the youth of the territory, and afford 
agi'eeable society ; but in a commercial point of 
view it can only have a limited share of trade. 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



101 



White River will hereafter be made navigable 
for steamers 200 miles above Big Black River, 
and will be the avenue for trade to the northern 
districts, whilst Red River will be the same lor 
the southern. The resources, too, of the terri- 
tory itself appear to me, from all I learn, to have 
been ver}' much exaggerated. Mountains and 
soils of inferior quality form two thirds of the 
whole area, and the rich bottoms which commu- 
nicate with the Arkansas, the Mississippi, Big 
Black, White River, and other streams, will in 
most places require a great capital to be laid out 
in embankments, or levees, as they are called, to 
secure the cotton crops from inundation. Cot- 
ton will always be the staple production of Ar- 
kansas, which is therefore destined to ihe curse 
of being a slave-holding state. 

The town, as has been before stated, is built 
upon a slate traversed by broad bands of quartz, 
and no sandstone is superincumbent in the im- 
mediate vicinity; but near the ferry I found a 
partial bed of tertiary limestone, containing os- 
trea, turritella, calyptrea, cerithium, and other 
marine shells ; and about three jniles from Lit- 
tle Rock the same deposit reappears in consid- 
erable quantities, and is quarried for the purpose 
of making lime. About three miles and a half 
S.E. from Little Rock there is an independent 
ridge of hard siliceous matter which is ten miles 
long, and lies'on tlie south side of the bayou call- 
ed Fourche, where are some exceedingly rich 
alluvial bottoms filled with trees of great magni- 
tude, and which presented a very curious ap- 
pearance. 

The periodical inundations of the Arkansas 
are sometimes of a terrible character, rising to 
the height of thirty and even forty feet. During 
one of these, in June, 1833, the backwater of the 
river rushed up the bayou, and very soon filled 
the extensive alluvial bottom : the river being 
highly charged with red argillaceous matter col- 
lected in its course from the Rocky Mountains, 
left, on its subsidence, all the trees painted with 
a chocolate-red colour at a great distance from 
the ground, so that the height of the inundation 
could be accurately measured. Many trees at- 
tain a surprising elevation and girth in bottoms 
of this kind in these low latitudes. Amongst 
them I observed Deciduous Cypress (^Cupressa 
disticha), Cotton-Wood-Poplar {Populus angula- 
ta), Populus Tiionillfera, Hackberry {Cdtis inte- 
grifolia), Over-Cup-White-Oak {Quercus macro- 
carpa), Cofiee-Bean Tree (^Gijnmodadus Canaden- 
sis), Sweet-Gum Tree (^Liqaidambar slyracijiua), 
One-seeded L.oc\ist. {Glcditsia monospcrma), Trip- 
le-thorned Acacia (Acacia triacantkos), Ogee- 
chee Lime {Ni/ssa pubcscens), and many others. 
These bottoms are so grown up with vegetable 
matter, and are in some parts so dilRcult to move 
through, on account of those vegetable pests the 
Saw Briar (Schrankia horridula), Green Briar 
{Smilax), and Supple Jacks {^Eiwplia volubiUs), 
all of which, especially the Saw Briar, catch and 
tear your clothes, that an individual not familiar 
with these endless and gloomy swamps is not 
much tempted to wander far into them. Any 
one who should lose himself and be exposed to 
remaining there all night, would have to climb 
a tree, for those places are the favourite resort of 
numerous troops of wolves at that period. Noth- 
ing can exceed the fertility of these bottoms, but 
they will not be reclaimed soon, for the embank- 
ments necessary to keep out the inundations 
■would require to be of the most formidable and 
expensive character. 



During our stay here we made various excur- 
sions into the neighbourhood. I had heard of 
the Mammelles, and was desirous of seeing them 
and the adjacent country, as they were only 
about twenty miles oft' up the Arkansas River; 
accordingly, on the 22nd of November, having 
procured an additional horse, we took to the 
woods again. We kept the slate for a few miles, 
and then rose upon ridges of sandstone of the 
same mineral character as those we had travel- 
led upon on the north side of the valley, on our 
way to Little Rock, and whicii I have supposed 
to be the equivalent of the old red sandstone of 
Europe. 'I'he veins of quartz were here also of 
great breadth and still more frequent. We saw 
numerous beautiful deer on the way, bounding 
and skipping about with great agility, and then 
showing us their snow-white tails and haunches; 
but as we make war only on fossils, except when 
we are obliged to supply ourselves with provis- 
ions, we are content with admiring them. The 
ridges here run nearly east and west for about 
twelve miles from Little Rock, when the country 
becomes more level, with small bottoms of land 
and narrow streams running through them. 
Here we found some German emigrants tempo- 
rarily hutted, who had gone through a variety of 
adventures since they left their native fader- 
land : they had been sick with the malaria and 
were now recovering, but all their enthusiasna 
for liberty and America had evajJoiaied ; their 
resources, too, were nearly exhausted, and, en- 
feebled and disheartened, they seemed not to look 
forward with pleasure any more, but rather to 
revert to what they had left behind. This is too 
frequently the fate of emigrants who are discon- 
tented with their native country; they render 
themselves unhappy at home by believing that 
everything at a distance from it is paradise ; and 
when, after having sacrificed all their means and 
encountered continual privations and sickness, 
they have put an impassable barrier betwixt 
themselves and the soil they still love and the 
friends of their youth, they find they have ac- 
complished nothing but expatriation, that they 
are in a foreign land of whicli they do not know 
the language, where everything appears barba- 
rous to them, where no one takes the least inter- 
est in them, and that the sunshine they once in- 
considerately thought belonged to the future, 
now, when they have paid the uttermost price 
for it, only beams in their sorrowful imagina- 
tions upon the past. 

These poor people were delighted to converse 
with me, and to find that we took an interest in 
them. I gave them a little money, of which 
they stood in great need to purchase meal, and 
advised them not to settle upon the bottom lands 
where the malaria would constantly persecute 
them ; but rather to seek an undulating country 
where there was abundance of limestone and de- 
ciduous timber, and where the slopes of the hills 
would yield them grain and pasturage, and good 
springs. Leaving these worthy people, we no'w 
entered upon an extensive bottom with numer- 
ous streams running through it, one of which, 
about fifteen miles from Little Rock, is called 
Petite Mammelle ; and here, in the immediate 
vicinity of this stream, is that magnificent rocky 
cone called the Mammelle Mmmtain, an outlier of 
the red sandstone, so often mentioned, of a very 
precipitous kind. Its south-west aspect is ex- 
tremely fine, and resembles a pyramid, the height 
of which is about 700 feet from its base. 

Having ridden our horses through the pine- 



102 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



trees which extend two-thirds of the way up the 
mountain, and wiiich was as I'ar as we thought it 
expedient lo take them, we dismounted and se- 
cured them in order to accomplish the rest of the 
ascent, which is naked, steep, and rugged, on 
foot. On the S.W. edge of the pyramid, the 
sandstone beds were lying at an angle of 70° to 
75°, and in some places they were vertical, be- 
ing completely set on end. Many acres of the 
■western face were covered with huge blocks and 
fragments of the rock, without a plant or a blade 
of grass to relieve the rugged and desolate aspect 
it presented. After a fatiguing ascent we gained 
the top, from whence we saw the river Arkansas 
at a distance of about two miles, and all the sur- 
rounding country at our feet. The rich bottoms 
were plainly indicated by the deciduous trees 
with which they were covered, and stood in 
strong contrast to the pine timber growing on the 
ridges. The horizon was bounded by ridges 
bearing S.W. and W. from us, and we saw dis- 
tinctly several high cones to the N.W., which I 
took to be the elevations called Magazine and 
Mount Ceriie. To the N. was the interminable 
wilderness of gray leafless forests we had so late- 
ly passed over, on our journey to Little Rock. 
The waving line of the Arkansas, and the exten- 
sive bottoms into which it rushes when its chan- 
nel is full, were all before us. 1 had no concep- 
tion before of the great extent of these bottoms, 
which can never be made available for human 
purposes until they are protected by levees from 
the intrusion of the river. The view from this 
mountain is extremely characteristic of the wilds 
of America, and would make a fine panorama. 
But we had scarcely made a shetch of it before 
it was time to descend, for evening was ap- 
proaching, and we had yet to find our way to a 
person to whom we had an introduction, and 
who had built a sawmill somewhere in the vi- 
cinity of the river for the purpose of sawing the 
logs of the cypress trees. 

Regaining our horses we pursued our journey, 
and soon entered one of those vast dark bottoms, 
filled with thick and lofty trees, all of which, to 
the height of about fifteen feet, were painted a 
chocolate colour, as accurately as if it had been 
done by hand, with the red mud of the Arkansas. 
In this immense bed of silt, produced by the an- 
cient overflowings of the river — which rose thir- 
ty feet in June, 1833— we came to a serious ob- 
stacle in a broad and deep bayou, called the 
Grande Mammelle. Its banks were exceeding- 
ly difiicult both of access and egress, and the 
mud appeared so deep that we were not a little 
embarrassed what to do. Happily a tree had 
fallen across, so getting upon it, and sounding 
the bayou, we determined to try it. My son en- 
tered the water first, mounted on our friend Mis- 
souri, for we knew he was to be relied upon at 
a pinch, and to be sure he swam over gallantly 
to the other side; but there the bog was so deep 
and plastic, that he stuck fast, and could not ex- 
tricate himself. My son was therefore obliged 
to jump off" into the bayou to relieve him of his 
weight, and by the aid of some twigs got on the 
bank. After a great many violent plunges the 
, horse at length got out covered from top to bot- 
tom with mud. I now unsaddled my horse, and 
my son crossing over to my side on the tree led 
him by the bridle; but my horse in his turn got 
completely bogged, and wanting the spirit of the 
other, he seemed to give it up, and turned his 
eyes up to us in such a comical and reproachful 
way, that we simultaneously burst out a laugh- 



ing. After a while collecting his energies he 
made a fortunate plunge, and got to the bank 
also. 

Having scraped our nags a little, we re-sad- 
dled and proceeded on amidst those never-ending 
painted trees, that were continually reminding us 
of the wild power of the Arkansas, to which, as 
when men are walking upon the crater of an 
abated volcano, we i'elt as if we were too near. 
We had no path to guide us, no marked trees to 
assure us that we were in the right track, and we 
were not much encouraged at discovering, as we 
advanced, an endless succession of stagnant pools 
on our left, showing that we were in the lowest 
part of the swamp. Guided alone by the com- 
pass, we pursued our way, hoping that this be- 
ing the lowest part of the bottom it might be con- 
nected with the stream upon which the saw-mill 
was built. We had been told that this mill was 
about three or four miles from the mouth of the 
Grande Mammelle, but whereabouts this mouth 
was it was impossible for us to surmise ; a very 
cold night was coming on, my son was wet 
through, if we did not extricate ourselves from 
this horrid place before it became dark, it would 
be impossible to proceed. I became very anx- 
ious, and regretted a thousand times that 1 had 
not engaged a guide. What made my reflections 
still more unpleasant was, that I had seen the 
extent of this frightful swamp from the top of the 
mountain, and knew that it extended several 
miles (I afterwards learnt that it contained from 
30,000 to 40,000 acres); it was evident, therefore, 
that if we were benighted, we might find it very 
difiicult to provide for our safety against the 
countless gangs of savage wolves that range 
about by night. Leaving the pools, we now in- 
clined more to the right, and the forest being 
somewhat more dry and open, put on in the di- 
rection of the Arkansas, thinking we should be 
more safe there than in the swamp. Steadily 
Ibllowing this course for some time, we came at 
length upon a cowpath, and felt amazingly cheer- 
ed by it. I knew that it was the custom in these 
wilds to turn the cows out during the day to pro- 
vide for themselves, and to shut the calves up to 
entice their mothers back. Now the cow that 
made that path must have some place to go to, 
and something in the shape of man would prob- 
ably be there. On we went, losing and finding 
the path twenty times, and at length came to 
where the ground was more beaten, and several 
other paths appeared. A little embarrassed at 
this, we, in the end, preferred the most beaten of 
them, and put our willing horses — who seemed 
as much comforted as ourselves by these signs — 
upon it. 

Night had fallen, when suddenly we heard the 
comforting sound of the lowing of cattle. Never 
did that sweet line — 

Aut ill reducta valle mugientiura — 
please me so much as those rural and friendly 
sounds; guided by them we came to a small 
house on the river, and were there directed to 
proceed half a mile to a settlement where the 
mill was, and to the proprieto- of which we had 
an introduction. 



CHAPTER XXVIIL 

A Concert of Wolves — Aneient bed of the Arkansas — An 
Arkansas Honeymnnn — Mettiod of crossing a Bayou — De- 
part from Little Rock fnr the Hot Springs of the Washita 
— Explanation of a " Turn-out" — Stop at the best Hotel 
on the Road—" Nisby" and her " Missus"— Stump Han- 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



103 



• die and Company— A fastidious Judge— Governor Shan- 
non's Hotel— A Jury de circumstautibus 



The owner of the mill, Mr. Starbuck, was 
from home with his wire, but his father-in-law, a 
Mr. Elliot from Virginia, and his Indy, were 
there, and received us in a very friendly manner. 
Here we supped and slept, if being awake al- 
most the whole night can be called sleeping, for 
which there were various causes; Fahrenheit's 
thermometer fell before midnight to 24°, a point 
which is sensibly felt in this latitude, and our 
room, although not out of doors, felt very much 
like it. Then came the yelling and howling of 
the wolves, who made an incredible noise, es- 
pecially towards morning, some barking in one 
tone, some screaming and howling in another, 
as if each one had his tail in a pair of pincers; 
an uproar which appears intended as a signal 
for stragglers to come into the swamp, where 
they crouch during the day. A third cause of 
-our wakefulness was some strong green tea that 
good Mrs. Elliot treated us to; an excellent bev- 
erage, if it is wanted to dragoon nature into sit- 
ting up all night, but which upon this occasion 
did not fail to give me abundant opportunities of 
thinking about a great many things, and especi- 
ally of the very pretty night we should have had 
of ir, what with the weather and the wolves, if 
we had been obliged to stay in the swamp. 

]n the morning I was glad to get out of doors 
at the break of day, in order to gratify myself by 
looking round, and to restore the circulation by a 
■good long walk before breakfast. Mr. Starbuck 
is a man of great resolution and enterprise, and 
has built a grist and saw mill at the edge of this 
great swamp; the pools we had seen formed a 
chain of small lakes, which extended several 
miles, and the timber on each side of them, and 
on theiredges, being almost all killed by the water, 
formed as perfect a picture of desolation as a for- 
est of innumerable dead ragged bare poles can 
do. The Cyprus {C. disticka), which is the tim- 
ber they principally saw, flourishes greatly in 
such situations, and attains a prodigious size. 
As to the lakes, such immense quantities of wild 
fowl resort there that some of them were almost 
covered with wild geese and ducks, and at cer- 
tain seasons swans come there also. 

During the day I had an opportunity of more 
minutely examining this curious locality, and 
saw very clearly that the long chain of pools and 
lakes was upon the line of an ancient channel of 
the Arkansas, having traced it through the swamp 
to the river again. A small circumstance will 
lead to the deflection of one of these mighty 
streams, when flowing through an alluvial coun- 
try. The lodgement of a tree in a low state of 
the water will, when the stream becomes still 
lower, turn it from its course, and produce also 
what is called a sandbar. The current having a 
new direction given to it, wears its way in time 
through some low and weak part of the opposite 
bank, makes a new and circituous channel, and 
forms an island, which in this part of the coun- 
try is usually called a -'cut off;" the old bed 
now becomes converted into a chain of pools 
and lakes, and is gradually filled up again by the 
silt deposited by the annual inundations. I have 
heard of the channel of the Mississippi at the 
south being changed in this way, a sandbar hav- 
ing first turned the current through a new and 
weak part of the bank, and the whole flood, in a 
period of inundation, coming through in such 
force as to efi^ect, in 24 hours, a new channel fit- 
ted for a steamer to pass through. 



In the course of the day a small skiff coming 
to the mill from below for some grist, i prevail- 
ed upon the boys who paddled it to put us over 
to the other side of the river, where 1 had heard 
there were some settlements. Having landed 
upon an immense sandbar,* we pur'jued it (oc- 
casionally diverging into the interior) lor several 
miles, observing the workings of this powerful 
flood, and I became so interested with what I 
saw, and received .so much information from this 
practical lesson, that I determined to follow the 
river on my return from the Mexican frontier, to 
its junction with the Mississippi, a distance of 
about 300 miles. 

From the river we went a short distance into 
the interior to see a Mr. Piat, an old settler here, 
who has raised a large family in Arkansas, most 
of whom have established themselves elsewhere. 
He seemed to have collected some comforts 
about him; but a Mr. Graham, who lives in the 
neighbourhood, has built himself a commodious 
house, and has a few small fields adjoining to 
it, with a patch of very promising looking wheat. 
Many persons in the territory, who have never 
been accustomed to plant any thing but Indian 
corn, imagine that wheat will not succeed, and 
upon no better evidence than that they have 
never sown any; but the appearance of Mr, 
Starbuck's grist mill, the want of which had per- 
haps kept the cultivation of wheat back, is pro- 
ducing a salutary change. 

We also visited a place we had heard a good 
deal of wondrous matter about, called Crystal 
Hill. It is distant from Little Rock about 14 
miles, and abuts upon the river. It consisted of 
red sandstone lying upon slaty shale, dipping to 
the south-east. The shale runs about three- 
fourths of the distance up the hill, and the sand- 
stone caps it there at an inclination of about 60''. 
At the water's edge the shale contains bands and 
nodules of ironstone, and occasionally pyrites or 
sulphuret of iron, which many persons, ignorant 
of minerals, who have landed here, have sup- 
posed connected with the precious metals, and so 
have caused the locality to be talked about. In- 
deed there is another place a few miles lower 
down, called Miiie i7/y, where some individuals, 
upon the strength of similar appearances, have 
actually dug for silver. 

Night coming on, we engaged two men to row 
us back in a skiflT to a Mr. Henderson's, where 
we had sent our horses in the morning, and here 
we were very hospitably entertained. Our host 
had formerly been a trader with the Indians, and 
knew this part of America well. On the chim- 
ney-piece of the room where we slept, I saw a 
siiigular ornament, a compound mirror, com- 
posed of near a hundred small ones, all with sep- 
arate lackered frames, and fancifully arranged 
into one general frame. He said it was the only 
remnant of his old stock in trade, and that ha 
used to exchange these trifles with the Indians 
for their peltry." After breakfast he was kind 
enough to accompany us for a few miles from 
his house, in order "to see us safe across the 
Grande Mammelle by another ford, where there 
was less mud. On reaching the ford, I was 



* These sandbars, when the river is low, may be trave- 
led over for great distances, and are thus used where there 
are no roads. Some conception may be formed of the diffi- 
culties which first settlers have to contend with, by stating- 
that a very respectable person, who resides about 50 miles 
west of Little Rock, took his bride on horseback, to visit 
some friends up the Arkansas, for the distance of 200 miles, 
fording the river from bar to bar, and sleeping every night 
upon one of them. 



104 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



amused at the nonchalance with which he com- 
menced his operations; merely crossing his own 
stirrups over the saddle, he led his horse to the 
stream, and drove him in with a few strokes of 
the whip, when the animal, partly swimming, 
and partly walking, soon got over. Then taking 
the saddles from our horses, and tying the bridles 
round their necks, he drove our horses across in 
the same manner, which immediately joined his 
nag that was cropping the leaves of a cane-brake 
on the opposite side. With our saddles on our 
shoulders, we now crossed the bayou, over a tree 
which had been felled for the purpose, and re- 
mounting, soon came on the eastern and south 
fronts ol the Mammelle Mountain, which we 
found was connected with a low peaked chain 
that extended to the river, and abutted upon it 
opposite to the long sandbar. Having taken a 
friendly leave of our guide, and received his di- 
rections for our course, we without difficulty got 
into the old road and reached Little Rock again 
in the afternoon. 

On the 27th of November we again put our 
little waggon in motion, and directed our course 
towards the hot springs of Washita (pronounced 
Washitaw). For the first eight miles the road 
was very bad, full of rocks, stumps, and deep 
mud holes, and wound up one of those sandstone 
ridges that are so common in this country. We 
frequently came upon trees that had fallen across 
the road, and had lain there many years, exhib- 
iting an indifference on the part of the settlers 
unknown in the more industrious northern states. 
When a tree falls on the narrow forest road, the 
first traveller that passes is obliged to make a 
circuitous track around it, and the rest follow 
him for the same reason. I have observed this 
peculiarity both in Missouri and Arkansas. If 
a tree is blown down near to a settler's house, 
and obstructs the road, he never cuts a log out 
of it to open a passage; it is not in his way, and 
travellers can do as they please, because nobody 
would prevent their cutting it. But travellers 
feeling no inclination to do what they think is 
not their business, never do it. The settler in 
these wild countries plants to live, and not to 
take to market; if he is on horseback he cares 
little about it, if he is in a light waggon he can 
get round the tree in less time than it would take 
to stop and "work for others." Thus the old 
adage is verified, that " what is every body's 
business is nobody's business;" but what makes 
this unjustifiable indolence on the part of the 
settler — when the obstruction is near his house — 
sometimes very absurd, is, that often when a 
track is established round the first fallen tree 
another obstruction shuts up this track, and so in 
a long period of time the established track gets 
removed into the woods, far out of sight of the 
settler's house. If you ask him why he does not 
cut a log out of the first fallen tree, he will prob- 
ably say that " it is not his business to wait upon 
travellers," and indeed the distances from house 
to house are sometimes so very great, that it 
would he unreasonable to require of any par- 
ticular settler to remove all such obstructions. 
These circuitous tracks are known by the name 
of tuTTi-outs, and if you are inquiring towards 
evening how many miles it is to the next settle- 
ment, you perhaps will be told, "16 miles and a 
heap of tuni-outs." We once made a calculation 
that these turn-outs had added at least five miles 
to our journey in Missouri and Arkansas. Apro- 
pos of the pronunciation of this word— which 
undoubtedly is a Gallo-American corruption of 



an Indian name — the universally adopted one 
now is Arkunsaw, pronouncing the first syllable 
as we do in the word arm, and the last as we do 
saw — a carpenter's tool ; the middle syllable is 
short. 

Having reached the top of the sandstone ridge, 
we found a tolerably good table-land, watered by 
numerous small transparent streams, some of 
which run into the Arkansas, others into the 
Bayou Bartholomew, a tributary of the Saline 
River, before it joins the Washita. As we ad- 
vanced, the vegetation began to assume more 
and more a semi-tropical character; several spe- 
cies of oaks which we had not seen now appear- 
ed, especially the narrow-leaved varieties; the 
willow oak {Q'locrcus pAellos) was very abundant; 
and we found the first plant we had seen of the 
bow wood {Madura auranliaca), but without 
any fruit on it. In the evening we came to a 
sort of tavern, 27 miles from Little Rock, built 
on a rich bottom of land, at the north fork of the 
Saline, a violent stream in the season of freshets 
or floods, which then overflows its banks i30 feet. 
This place was kept by a sort of she Caliban, 
and the tenement consisted of one room with a 
mud floor, in the various corners of which were 
four cranky beadsteads, upon which were hud- 
dled what she chose to call bed clothes. But 
what bed clothes! Then there was a door that 
would not shut, a window frame with every pane 
broken, and some benches to sit on before a 
broken table, to form the sum total of the furni- 
ture and appliances of this hotel. She told us 
we might choose our own bed, and after we had 
put our horse up, she would give us some sup- 
ser. As it had already begun to rain, we were 
glad to be housed for the night, and having put 
Missouri into a hovel, consisting of open logs, 
with some boards to cover him, and left him 
with plenty of Indian corn leaves and some grain, 
we adjourned to the fire-side. The rain now be- 
gan to pour down in torrents, and before our sup- 
per was ready four more travellers joined us, os- 
tensibly on their way to a government sale of 
land at a distant county. I was glad of this, be- 
cause one of them was Colonel A*****, of Lit- 
tle Rock, a v°ry intelligent and agreeable per- 
son, with whom I was acquainted. 

This accession to her company put our host- 
ess into a great bustle ; she had to prepare sup- 
per for six persons, several of whom were law- 
yers, and of course the great man of Little Rock, 
and she set about it accordingly. We now dis- 
covered that she possessed resources we had not 
suspected the existence of; a kitchen — that cor- 
responded with every thing else — was attached 
to the hotel, and communicated with it by a 
small door, and in that kitchen was her aide de 
cuisine and factotum, a stunted, big-headed ne- 
gro girl, that from her size did not appear to be 
more than twelve, yet was not destined to see 
her twentieth year again. The grotesque rags 
this creature was dressed in, and the broken- 
brimmed man's hat that was cocked on one side 
of her head, gave such an effect to the general 
attractions of Nisby— for that was her name — 
that she put us all into the verj^ best possible hu- 
mour, and we could not but break out into a 
chuckle of delight whenever she came into the 
room. Whenever we became better acquaint- 
ed, we found that Nisby was an abbreviation of 
Sophynisby, as our hostess pronounced it, which 
put me in mind of Thomson's line — 
" Oh Sophonisba, Sophonisba, Oh 1" 

I know not when I have uttered so many laugh- 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



105 



ing Ohs! as during the early part of this even- 
ing. The appearance of the girl indicated ex- 
treme stolidity, vet she did not want for spirit 
and activity." Her "Missus," who seemed to 
have a lurking idea that things might possibly be 
carried on a " leetel" belter than they were at her 
hotel, always endeavoured to supply deficiencies 
by a voluble and magniloqdent description of the 
things she "hadn't jist got at that time;" and 
whenever she was at a pinch, would draw upon 
Nisby lo confirm her as.sertions : this the girl 
was pretty well broken into, but when the " Mis- 
sus," in the warmth of her generous intentions 
in our favour, would sometimes call upon Nisby 
to execute instanter manifest impossibilities, then 
poor Nisby would be " nonplushed," and, if hard 
pressed, would betray something that looked like 
impatience. We had an amusing instance of 
this whilst the supper vvas preparing. Upon the 
broken table around which we were to sit, Nis- 
by had placed certain plates and coffee cups and 
saucers, most of which had gone through a great 
many hardships; and having used her talent for 
display to the best advantage, went to the kitch- 
en, where her Missus was occupied baking some 
heavy dough cakes, and frying a quantity of lit- 
tle bi'ts of fat pork. By and by in came Missus 
to take a survey before the first entree came in, 
and affecting a most distressing surprise, com- 
menced the following dialogue with her aide de 
cuisine at the top of their voices : 

" Why, how this gal has laid the table 1 Nis- 
by 1" 
" What's awanting, Missus?' 
" You ha-ant laid the table no hay w, you kree- 
ter, you 1" 

" I reckon I couldn't do it no better." 
" Why, whar on arth is all the forks'?" 
" Why, the forks is on the table thar." 
" If you don't beat all— I mean the new forks." 
" I niver seen no new forks, you know that, 
Missus." 
" Whar has the kreetur put the forks, I say V 
No answer. 

" Wahl ! if you don't find the forks, I allow I '11 
give it to you !" 

Enter Nisby, agitata. j^^j 

{Sfltto voce e staccato.) " I ha-ant put no forks 
nowhar. I niver seen no forks but them ar 
what's on the table ; thar's five on 'em, and thar's 
not no more ; thar's Stump Handle, Crooky Prongs, 
Horny, Big Peicter, and Little Pickey, and that's 
jist what thar is, and I expec they are all thar to 
speak for themselves." 

And Nisby was right. Stump Handle was there, 
and was by far the»most forkable-looking con- 
cern, for it consisted of one prong of an old fork 
stuck into a stumpy piece of wood. Crooky 
Prongs was curled over on each side, adapting 
itself in an admirable manner to catch cod-fish, 
but rather foreign to the purpose of sticking into 
anything. Horny had apparently never been at 
Sheffield or Birmingham, as it was a sort of im- 
itation of a fork made out of a cow's horn. Big 
Pewter was made of the handle of a spoon with 
the bowl broken off; and LiMk Pickey was a 
dear interesting looking little thing, something 
like a cobbler's awl fastened in a thick piece of 
•wood. 

As my son and myself had our own knives and 
forks, we did not dispute the choice of the re- 
markable ones on the table; and the guests, ex- 
cessively diverted with this dialogue, good na- 
turedly adapted themselves to the necessity of the 
O 



case. We contrived to swallow some of the 
wretched coffee, by putting a great deal of sugar 
into it ; and we tasted the heavy cakes, one-third 
of which seemed to be mere dirt. Indeed every- 
thing was so dirty, that my stomach revolted at 
what was before us. The old hag sat at the ta- 
ble to pour out the coffee, and saw well enough 
that we were disgusted ; but as we said nothing,, 
she made no remarks. One of the guests, how- 
ever, told a capital story, which was a fair hit,^ 
and which she did not relish at all. It was of^ 
one Judge Dooly, who was obliged to make cer- 
tain circuits in an unsettled part of the country, 
and being rather fastidious, did not always sub- 
mit in silence to the inconvenience he was expo- 
sed to by the dirt and slovenliness of others. It 
happened that the landlord of a tavern he was oc- 
casionally obliged to stop at, had a dispute with 
another tavern-keeper about the direction of a 
new road that was going to be laid out, each of 
them being very anxious to have it brought near to 
his house : he took the liberty, therefore, of can- 
vassing the Judge — who was one of the persons 
that was to determine the course of the road — and 
endeavoured to convince him that the road ought:, 
to come to his house, frequently apologizing, 
however, and saying that " the Judge knew best, 
what suited him, but he hoped there was no harm 
in giving a friendly opinion." " Not at all," re- 
plied the Judge, " and [ will in return offer you 
some friendly advice, that may perhaps be use- 
ful to you in regard to your table, if the road 
should happen to come this way. You know 
best, but I should think it would be better for you,, 
when travellers come to your house, to have the 
dirt put on one dish, and the bar's (bear's) meat 
on another, for I swear I like to mix such things 
for myself, and not to let others do it lor me." 

When we had left the table and drew near to 
the fire, a great many pleasant stories were told. 
Colonel *****, who for several years attended 
the circuits to remote and barbarous parts of the 
territory, said, that although professional men- 
had still many curious scenes to go through, yet 
that they now fared much better, and found some- 
sort of accommodation more frequently than for- 
merly. He stated that some years ago, after a 
hard day's ride, there was only one cabin at 
which they could stop, and that it was very im- 
portant to reach it in the winter season. This- 
cabin belonged to an old hunter, a pioneer in 
that part of the country, to whom the lawyers — 
in virtue of the extensive jurisdiction he had iti' 
the wilderness — had given the title of Governcrr 
Shannon; it consisted of one solitary room with 
a mud floor, and not a single article of furniture 
except an old log that he had hollowed out, and 
that he slept in at night, and sat upon at other 
times. Upon this mud floor travellers used tO' 
stretch themselves in their blanket-coats, and 
j there they pigged with the Governor, an old ne- 
giess, and a ham of dogs he kept to hunt the bars, 
j which were numerous around him. As there 
I had never been a door — or any contrivance ap- 
{ proaching it — to the cabin, the dogs used to come 
in and go out whenever they pleased : if they 
were all asleep, the barking of a wolf would 
rouse them, and out they would rush over the 
recumbent travellers, without being at all partic- 
ular where they trod upon them. On their re- 
turn, wet and covered with dirt, they made no 
ceremony of who they laid near, nor whom they 
laid upon, for dogs like to lie warm, and this 
was the reason why the Governor had made his 
bed in a log. It happened upon one occasion 



106 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



that a judge, who had never made this circuit 
before, favoured the Governor with his compa- 
ny, and becoming at length outrageously annoy- 
ed at the stench and filth of the dogs, one of 
which had acted very irreverently to his Hon- 
our, called out to the Governor, that if he did not 
take a dog away that was upon him, he would 
kill him on the spot. Upon which his Excellen- 
cy replied, that he " would be if the 

bl — d judges and lawyers of Arkansas hadn't 
slept with his dogs for seven years, and that if 
^ny man touched one of 'em, he would send him 
to sleep with the painters, in less than no time." 
The Governor was well known to be a resolute 
fellow, and as there was no other settler nearer 
than 30 miles, and " a pretty considerable .sprink- 
ling of bars and painters about," the Judge 
thought it best to put up with this slight upon 
his authority. 

We had also another very characteristic story. 
When the Americans first crossed over into Tex- 
as, they, as usual, scattered themselves about the 
country, each selecting a suitable situation in a 
Weil-watered fertile part, not more distant than 
ten or twenty miles from each other. This was 
very convenient for the thieves and homicides, 
whose practices sometimes made it necessary for 
them to escape even from Little Rock, and to these 
settlers they upon such occasions resorted. Ere 
long, however, their evil doings made them as 
obnoxious to these pioneers in Texas as they 
had been to others, and the settlers combined to 
•drive them off. It happened that three fellows 
of the very worst stamp, two of whom had com- 
mitted murder, and the other was a notorious 
horse thief, had broken jail at Little Rock, and 
were pursued and traced into Texas, where they 
had eluded their pursuers. At this time the 
Mexican laws nominally prevailed in that part 
■of the country, for the Americans professed to be 
Mexican citizens, and there being no Mexican 
authorities to administer justice, one of the 
American settlers, a man of some resolution, 
was appointed by his fellow countrymen to act 
as a magistrate, and was called "Alcalde." 
There being some reason to believe that the three 
vagabonds were hid away in an extensive corn- 
brake, a party was formed to hunt them up, and 
having found and secured them, they were taken 
to the Alcalde's house. A court was immedi- 
ately held, and a narrative entered into of the 
circumstances under which they had been tra- 
ced, and finally captured in the corn-brake. But 
as no evidence was adduced to prove that these 
men had been guilty of the crimes imputed to 
them, the Alcalde declared, "I swar I'm non- 
■plushed ; these is the right fellows — no doubt of 
that — but who's to prove it, and who onder arth 
is to take 'em back to Little Rock I want t-o 
know." The Alcalde's wife, coming into the 
council just at this time, looked at the culprits, 
and in one of them discovered a fellow who had 
stolen some linen from her cabin when she lived 
in Arkansas, and who was known to have kill- 
ed a cow belonging to her brother, for the sake 
of the skin. " I tell you, old Caldy," said she, 
"if you don't hang these fellows up right off, 
you'll never have such another chance, and mind 
what I tell you, I calculate, if you don't, you 
ai'nt agoing to have a skin left on a knyw's hack, 
nor a shift to mine, to all etarnity." This alarm- 
ing prospect decided the fate of the jail-breakers, 
and they were all hung up within half an hour. 

But the best story of the evening was related 
bv a lawyer who had been personally concerned 



in it. Four other culprits had also broh-en jail 
at Little Rock, where they had been put, prepar- 
atory to being sent to a distant part of the coun- 
try to be tried in the district where they had com- 
mitted their offences. Three of them were char- 
ged with murder, and the fourth with several ca- 
ses of horse stealino^^ a crime at the head of all 
offences there, since there is nothing manly in it, 
and nothing more inconvenient. 'I'heir counsel, 
for it was he who related the story to us, said 
that they had good friends, and that he was well 
paid for defending them. As soon as he ascer- 
tained from his clients that they were all guilty, 
he arranged his plan for their defence. The 
place where they were to be tried consisted of a 
single house in the wilderness, which represent- 
ed the future county town; the witnesses were 
on the spot, and all the appliances to constitute 
a Court. Twelve men had been with some dif- 
ficulty got to leave home, and come to this place 
to perform the part of a jury. At the critical 
moment, however, one of these men was not to 
be found ; and as a panel could not be formed, 
the judge stated the fact, and asked what step 
the prosecuting attorney intended to take. The 
counsel of the accused, after many protestations 
of their innocence, and their strong desire to 
prove it without loss of time, now proposed to 
fill the panel de circumstantibus. It so happen- 
ed that the only circumstantes were the three 
murderers and the horse-stealer, so they put one 
of the murderers into the jury, and first tried the 
horse-stealer and acquitted him, and then put the 
horse-stealer into the panel and acquitted the 
murderer; and by this sort of admirable contri- 
vance the whole four were honourably acquitted, 
and returned perfectly whitewashed into the bo- 
som of society ; the jury and the rest of the court 
also, having got rid of a tedious and unpleasant 
business, returned without delay to their respect- 
ive homes. 

The hour at length came for us to retire to our 
dingy-looking beds. On examining the extra- 
ordinary bundle of rags of which mine seemed 
composed, I found one coarse sheet beneath — 
they never put more than one sheet to a bed — 
that had perhaps been slept upon by a score of 
persons, and a coarse blanket at the top of that: 
the pillow was a good match to the rest; so, get- 
ting into a large flannel bag I had made for the 
purpose, which left my arms free, and tied close 
round my neck, I covered the pillow with a silk 
handkerchief, tumbled all the rags on the floor, 
wrapped myself in a blanket-coat, and laid down, 
bidding defiance to the myriads of bugs that were 
confidently expecting their prey. 

The rain was still pouring down when I awoke 
in the morning, but jumping instantly up, I un- 
packed myself, and finding a pail of water and a 
gourd to dip it out with, on a shelf near the door 
— an excellent custom which obtains here — I 
hastened to make my ablutions, and having dri- 
ed my towel at the fire, prepared to depart. But 
the rain continuing to fall in torrents, we were 
all compelled to sit down at the table once more 
with Little Pickey and Company. The break- 
fast was more disgusting than the supper, be- 
cause the friendly darkness had concealed much 
of the filth, and of the sordid appearance of eve- 
ry thing around us. At length, however, it 
cleared up, and we got away from this den of 
rags and nastiness, just in season to ford the Sa- 
line, which was beginning to rise. 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



107 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

Arrive at Magnet Cove— An interesting Mineral Locality- 
Strange effects of a Hurricane— Reach the Hot Springs— 
Whittingtmi without his Cat— Rare accommodations— 
Description of the Springs— Fishes in Hot Water— Tem- 
perature anJ Gaseous Contents of the Hot Springs— The 
Travertine presents different Constituents below the 
Surface. 

Colonel Conway, the surveyor-general of 
the territory of Arkansas, was at this lime build- 
ing a coitage for his family to escape to, during 
the season of malaria at his plantation on Red 
River; and had been kind enough to give me a 
letter of introduction to his lady, desiring her to 
receive us hospitably for the night, if we found 
it convenient to stay there. This coitage, which 
■was in a secluded place called Magnet Cnvc, we 
determined to reach if we coulJ. Passing over 
the same kind of country we had seen the day 
before, pine limber prevailing, and the holly 
{Jlex opaca) beginning to be "abundant, we at 
length, after crossing some streams that were 
extremely swelled, reached Trammels, another 
miserable looking cabin, and here we left the 
road to Texas and turned into an obscure track 
that led to Magnet Cove and the Hot Springs. 
For the first three miles the country rose, and 
the road became exceedingly rocky and difticult; 
added to which the mountain streams were be- 
ginning to assume a fierce character that rendered 
them dangerous; frequently covering the track, 
so that we could not see it, and concealing rocks 
which often were on the point of overturning us. 

At length the country became more open, and 
as night was approaching we looked about with 
some an.xiety for Magnet Cove. What it was 
like no one had told me; I had intended to have 
got more particular directions from Colonel Con- 
way, but an engagement prevented our meeting 
at my departure from Little Rock, and he had 
sent the letter to my lodgings. The nature of 
the country did not promise anything like a cove, 
but always hoping that we should discover it, 
•we pushed on, and at length descended from the 
table-land into a gloomy looking lowland very 
densely timbered. Here we found two or three 
tracks, and were doubtful which to take. One 
i3f them probably led to the Hot Springs and the 
other to the cottage : seing some twigs lately bro- 
ken on the left-hand track we turned into it, and 
soon after saw a still fresher track on our left in 
the woods. Driving on as quick as we could we 
came at length to where we perceived that the 
lowland was encircled by lofty hills, and now it 
occurred to me that this was one of those roman- 
tic places such as we had seen in Virginia 
and Tennessee, and which are there also called 
coves, and perceiving a clearing, and lookins 
back through it we saw a cottage to which the 
track we had last passed eviriently led ; so turn- 
ing back we followed this track, and at last came 
to the cottage. Mrs. Conway received us very 
politely, and unprepared for visiters as she was, 
with carpenters and labourers to provide for, had 
some supper got for us. Seeing that we were 
very much in the way, we retired to rest in a 
room which was not yet enclosed, and was still 
open to the weather on the side where the chim- 
ney was hereafter to be built, an inconvenience 
which was remedied as well as circumstances 
admitted of, by hanging up some counterpanes; 
but everything was very clean and we rested 
well. 

In Ji^rnorning, at dawn of day, I sallied out 
to vi^^B|@ place, and having walked through 



In Ji^rnoi 

w 



the bottom, made my way up the lofty elevation 
with which it was surrounded, and looked down 
into the interior, which was in fact a deep basin 
containing about 1200 acres of the richest land, 
and thickly wooded. What struck me very 
much was, that the whole area — which rather 
affects a spheroidal than a circular form— com- 
prehending this cove both outside and in, was 
covered with deciduous trees, whilst without its 
limits the trees were all evergreens and pines. 
Upon examining the rocks upon which these de- 
ciduous trees grew, I Ibund they were constituted 
of a decomposing and very ancient greenstone, 
that had intruded itself into ihe general strata of 
sandstone of the surrounding country, whilst the 
evergreens grew only upon the sandstone out- 
side. Having returned to the house, and made 
a very comlortable breakfast, I sallied out again 
to look at some localities where Colonel Con- 
way had told me I should find some curious min- 
erals. 

He had informed me that on surveying the 
country the needle M'ould not iraverse on ap- 
proaching this locality, and the cause was here 
apparent from a mound in the Cove, covered 
with pebbles of magnetic micaceous oxide of 
iron from one ounce to four pounds weight. 
These pebbles, like those of the vein in Missou- 
ri which goes by the name of Iron Mountain, 
overlie masses of the metal of prodigious extent, 
which, from their great magnetic force, probably 
influence the country around for a great dis- 
tance. Some of the specimens which I brought 
away — especially one which contained a portion 
of a large crystal of iron — possess an intensity of 
magnetic power which is truly surprising. In 
other parts of the bottom I found large masses of 
decomposing felspar, studded with black tour- 
malines, some of which were in long prisms, 
whilst others were in stellated groups, with beau- 
tifully delicate acicular rays. In some of these 
felspathic rocks were amorphous pieces of white 
sulphuret of iron, believed nere to be silver. Oc- 
casionallv the rock in the bottom was a coarse- 
grained kind of syenite, composed of red felspar, 
hornblende, mica, and some quartz. In a small 
field, not far from the house, which had been re- 
cently ploughed — and where there was no tim- 
ber growing when Colonel Conway first took the 
possession of this place — I found a great many 
Indian arrow heads made of a beautiful semi- 
transparent kind of novaculite ; and in one place 
an immense number of chips and broken arrow 
heads, all of this stone, were lying together. 
This had been evidently a favourite retreat for 
the Indians, but I looked in vain for the rock 
from which the novaculite had been taken. 

Upon considering all the circumstances con- 
nected with this cove, the intrusive character of 
its rocks, their distinct origin and separation from 
the sandstone, its minerals, the quasi-crateri form 
of the cove, and the immense deposit of magnetic 
iron, I could not but be impressed with the opin- 
ion that Magnet Cove ows its origin to an an- 
cient volcanic action, and that it is one of those 
extinct craters that may have preceded that class 
where basalt and lava are the principal products. 
I left this rare place full of admiration ; if it 
were in social respects a desirable situation for a 
residence, the proprietor would certainly possess 
one of the most enviable estates in America. 

We had proceeded over the sandstone about 
six miles — always going parallel with the Wash- 
ita, -which flowed about a mile from us— -whea 
wd.came to a part of the country where all the 



108 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



forest trees — without exception — were standing 
for at least a thousand acres around, dead and 
bare, with the bark peeled off them, but without 
any marks whatever of fire having been in the 
country. This was a phenomenon we were at 
a loss to account for, but at the next settler's it 
was explained to us. About six years ago a 
hurricane passed over the country in the month 
of May, and desolated everything it came near. 
The sky, when passing over this place, was 
frighlfuUy black, and dipping down, discharged 
such fierce streams of hail against the northern 
side of the forest trees, that all the bark was de- 
stroyed down to the wood, and the circulation of 
the sap being destroyed, every one of the trees 
died. The house where we received this infor- 
mation—and which had several sick persons in 
it at the time, for the sake of being near the Hot 
Springs — was unroofed in an instant; all the 
poultry that were out of doors were killed on the 
spot, the rooms were filled with rain and hail as 
if a river had been pouring into it, and when the 
hurricane passed away there, the hail was two 
feet deep on the ground. These hurricanes, like 
those in the West Indies, sometimes assume a 
fearful character. I have never been caught in 
one of the worst of them, but their track in the 
forest which I have sometimes fallen in with, 
presents a singular picture of destruction. I 
have come upon an avenue of trees 200 yards 
wide, torn up by the roots, and going in a straight 
line through the country for a short distance, 
with the tops of the trees laid uniformly in one 
direction ; then a larger area would be seen with 
the trees twisted in a strange manner, broken, 
and laid in every direction, as if a whirlwind 
of immeasurable force had been expending itself 
upon them, and had clashed the trees against 
each other. 

From this place we had nine miles to go to 
the Hot Springs over the sandstone ; the road was 
bad, and we had to cross some violent streams, 
especially one called the Gulfer, which we 
achieved with some difficulty; at length, com- 
ing near a ridge, we turned into a narrow pas- 
sage or vale between two lofty hills, and saw from 
the appearance of things that we had reached the 
Hot Springs of the Washita, so much the object 
of curiosity to men of science, and so little known 
to the world. 

Four wretched-looking log cabins, in one of 
which was a small store, contained all the ac- 
commodations that these springs offered to trav- 
ellers. We had never seen anything worse or 
more unpromising than they were, but driving 
up to the store, a Mr. Whittington, who pur- 
chases bear skins and other skins of wild animals 
of the hunters, paying for them in the commodi- 
ties he gets from Little Rock, and who did not 
seem in a very promising way to the Lord Mayor- 
alty of London, was obliging enough to say we 
might take possession of one of the log cabins. 
Having taken care of our horse we accordingly 
moved into the first that we had passed on our 
arrival. It had a roof to it as well as a little por- 
tico, as a defence against the rays of the sun, but 
this was literally all that it had, for not an arti- 
cle of furniture was there either in the shape of 
table or chair. The floor was formed of boards 
roughly and unevenly hewn, and, unfortunately, 
some of them were wanting. Being reckoned, 
however, the best lodgings in the place, we made 
the best of it, and through our new friend got 
skins, blankets, and other appliances to serve as 
bedding. We next laid in some firewood and 



constructed a kind of table, so that when we had 
succeeded in borrowing two old chairs, we look- 
ed with some satisfaction upon our new attempt 
at housekeeping. We were sure at any rate of 
being alone, and of being out of the reach of filth 
of every kind ; in fact it was almost as desirable 
as being in the woods, and had the advantage 
of shelter. How invalids contrive to be com- 
fortable, who come to this ragged place, I cannot 
imagine, yet I understand that ten or a dozen 
people are often crammed into this room, which 
my son and myself found much too small for 
'wo. Persons who resort to these springs in the 
autumn might do very well if they brought with, 
them their own tents and a sack or two of flour, 
for meat in the latter part of the year is abun- 
dant and of good quality, which it is not at other 
times when animals are breeding and suckling 
their young. 

Being impatient to see the springs we sallied 
out, and continued making our observations un- 
til night fell. The narrow vale in which these 
huts are built, and which does not exceed 50 
yards in breadth, extends about 800 yards nearly 
north and south, and then turns to the west. On 
each side of it is a lofty ridge of sandstone, and 
other ridges close in the view to the north. At 
the base of the ridge to the east is a bed of clay- 
slate, upon which flows a pretty little murmur- 
ing stream, that takes its rise in the hills to the 
N.E., and into which immense sheets of traver- 
tine descend, indicating sufficiently the near 
neighbourhood of the springs. The ridge from 
its base to the top is very ferruginous, is about 
450 feet high, with a steep inclination, and in 
the upper part has a good growth of pine and 
oak timber. The greater number of the springs 
— which are very numerous — ri.se in the side of 
the ridge, at about one third of the distance from 
its base, and are found at various points below, 
and even in the bed of the stream, but there are 
some near 300 feet above it. There is this pe- 
culiarity in the situation of these Hot Springs, 
that if ever a town should be built in the narrow 
vale — which is only 100 feet below the most co- 
pious of them — the hot water, which perhaps has 
a mean temperature of 145° Fah., could be con- 
veyed in spouts supported by frame-s into all the 
houses below, to be used either as baths or for 
domestic purposes. As these hot waters flow 
down the side of the hill, they deposit their cal- 
careous matter, which can be traced down to the 
edge of the rivulet. The vale has perhaps been 
wider at some remote period, for the travertine 
extends back east from the stream about 150 
yards before it leans upon the acclivity of the 
hill, and is occasionally 100 feet high, continuing- 
along the east bank of the stream— with some in- 
terruption at intervals — a distance of 400 yards; 
sometimes presenting abrupt vertical faces froin 
15 to 25 feet high, and at other times showing" 
itself in curtains with stalactitic rods, and pre- 
senting points and coves advancing into and re- 
ceding from the stream. 

Having gratified myself with these preliminary^ 
observations, we returned to Mr. Whittington's 
to make the very important inquiry of how and 
where we were to get something to eat, and here 
we learnt that a Mr. Percival, who lived in an- 
other of the log cabins, was the general enter- 
tainer of all visitors to this place. He had been 
a hunter, and having seen the place as early as 
1807, had in some year subsequent to that built: 
a cabin in the vale : this fact, as he conceived, 
gave him a pre-emption claim of right^|^>ro- 






TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



prietor of the waters, and finding some advantage 
m supplying the invalids who had now for some 
years resorted to them, he had set up a monop- 
oly as general provider to all strangers who had 
any money in their pockets. To Mr. Percival's 
cabin therefore we hied, and presenting ourselves 
at his supper-table, found a quantity of little 
pieces of pork swimming in hog's grease, some 
very badly made bread, and much worse coffee, 
■waiting for us. They knew very well that we 
had no other place to go to, and had prepared 
accordingly. 

Nothing could be less tempting and more rude 
than the lare we got; and if it had not been for 
the supply of tea and sugar we had laid in at 
Little Rock our stomachs would have gone to 
bed very discontentedly. Percival, however, 
•was a good-natured man, could talk about things 
that interested us, and promised to look up some 
venison for another time, so we adjourned to our 
cabin, got up a good fire, and laid down. In the 
night we were awoke by the weather, which had 
set in excessively stormy, and we found that our 
portico, whatever its use might be in the sum- 
mer, was not upon duty at this season of the 
year, for the wind came in with such force that 
•we could scarce keep any of the covering upon 
ns, and I discovered that the rain had been pour- 
ing upon me for some time before I awoke. We 
"were also mistaken in our calculation of being 
-alone, for it seems our cabin being placed upon 
a loo^e wall raised about a foot and a half from 
the ground, offered a good shelter to the various 
hogs belonging to the place, all of which had 
congregated immediately beneath us, and there 
they were to be sure, grunting, and appearing 
excessively distressed, as hogs always are in 
stormy weather, and having every opportunity — 
if they were so disposed — of seeing what we 
•were doing through the hiatus valde firflmdus, 
•which separated every plank upon which we 
trod. This was our first n ight at the Hot Springs 
of the Washita, but happily we were not inva- 
lids. 

In the morning the weather had cleared up, 
and the sun broke out in great force, so having 
lighted our fire, and dried our effects, my son 
"went to the stream lor a pail of water to make 
our ablutions. We now found out that we were 
really at the Hot Springs, for there was a very 
great difiiculty in procuring cold water, the 
springs occupying a breadth equal to 400 yards 
of the base of the ridge, and all of them — at least 
thirty-five in number — falling into the brook, 
raised its temperature to that of a warm-bath, 
especially in places where springs of hot water 
came through the clay slate. Finding this to be 
the case, I thought t might as well go to the 
■water as have the water brought to me; so ta- 
king my brushes and towels I sallied out, and was 
exceedingly pleased wii,h the picturesque effect 
produced upon the slope of the ridge by the vol- 
umes of vapour proceeding from so many fu- 
meroles. A gentle smoke seemed to emerge 
from an immense thicket of arbusta and young 
plants, all of which, in full leaf of a brilliant 
green, made a fine contrast to the naked oaks 
already stripped of their leaves. The water in 
the brook was pleasantly tepid, and having no 
one to intrude upon my privacv, I made a^pro- 
fuse use of it, and wading about found that the 
hot water came through the slate in an immense 
number of places; yet mingling v/ith the water 
of the brook it did not burn my feet, although 
on the shore I found that if I insinuated mv fin- 



gers a few inches below the gravel, I was obliged 
to withdraw them instantly. Fishes are never 
found in this stream when the waters are low, 
but when it is much raised by floods from the 
mountains, then trout, perch, and other fish are 
taken in all parts of it. One of the inhabitants 
told me that towards the northern end of the trav- 
ertine, where there was a considerable pool, he 
had often seen the fish gliding below, and that 
upon such occasions when he would throw a 
lew crumbs of bread in, they would darl up- 
wards, and getting their noses into the stratum 
of hot water at the top, would instantly wheel 
about and disappear. Frogs and snakes, too, 
when they fall into it inadvertently, stretch them- 
selves out and die. 

We were so charmed with the novelty of every 
thing around us, that we got some corn bread 
and a little milk from Mrs. Percival, and sitting 
down by one of the springs— the temperature of 
which was 148* Fahr. — we made our breakfast 
there, the "water being sufficiently hot for the 
purpose, and enjoyed ourselves very much. In 
fact this day, December 30th, 1834, was a memo- 
rable one in our journey, for attractive as were 
the terrestrial rarities we were surrounded wiih, 
they were literally eclipsed by a celestial phe- 
nomenon of the highest degree of grandeur, an 
almost total solar eclipse diverting for a while 
our attention from every thing else. The eclipse 
here was not total, for at the period of the great- 
est obscuration there was still the appearance of 
a slight luminous streak of the sun's body, which 
gave a pale light equal perhaps in amount to 
that of two full moons ; the shadow of the clouds 
waved on the ground in a singular manner, and 
the thermometer fell 4° during the ten minutes 
preceding the greatest obscuration : the planet 
Venus, too, -was visible for near an hour, al- 
though the occultation took place in the middle 
of the day. Take it altogether, it was a very 
solemn scene. 

As soon as this had passed away, we contin- 
ued our observations upon every thing around 
us, and were not a little amused with the uses 
the settlers made of these waters: the lacility of 
obtaining hot water was fully appreciated by 
them, for they never seemed to boil any water 
for any purpose, nor to drink any cold water : a 
tree, smoothed off on the upper side, was laid 
across the stream at a narrow part, so that they 
could easily cross and supply themselves for the 
purpose of washing their clothes, and on a shelf, 
near the door of each cabin, was always a pail 
of mineral water with a gourd to drink it from. 
Some of the springs are quite tasteless, others 
have a slight chalybeate flavour, but certainly 
the first neither communicated a foreign taste to 
tea or coffee. The highest temperature of these 
springs at the time I was there, did not exceed 
148°, but there had been a good deal of rain 
which had no doubt lowered it. If there was no 
admixture of atmospheric waters, it is probable 
they would mark a few degrees more ; indeed 
an individual here with whom I becaine ac- 
quainted, showed me a memorandum which a 
visitor had given him during a period of long 
drought, where a particular spring was noted at 
156« Fahr. 

Around the sources of these hot waters the 
confervce flourish remarkably, but my attention 
was particularly drawn to an enamelled lichen- 
looking substance of a brilliant green colour 
which was exceedingly mucilaginous ; it was 
not, however, a lichen, for I observed that it be- 



110 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



gan at first by a filament, and that it went on 
spreading and thickening until it became half an 
inch thick. In some places it was six inches 
broad. The settlers finding that this substance 
keeps warm a long time, and that it feels soft 
and comfortable like a new poultice, apply it 
successfully to suppurate wounds. Where the 
travertine Ibrms so rapidly as to impede the pas- 
sage of the water, and compels it to take another 
channel down the hill, which it frequently does, 
this glairy-looking substance, abandoned by the 
hot water, entirely loses its colour, and dries up 
into a crisp, thin film, always, however, preserv- 
ing the appearance of lichen I examined it in 
this state with a strong glass, and found the centre 
of it to be calcareous matter of a whitish grey 
colour, deposited around a slight filament of 
grass, or any other accidental substance ; the 
side next the atmosphere being of a dark colour 
and in a state of decomposition, whilst the under 
side still preserved a deadish green appearance. 
I made some observations upon the gaseous 
contents of these waters, and put some bottles of 
them up, to have their solid contents ascertain- 
ed by some competent person in the Atlantic 
States, but the bottles got broke before they 
reached their destination.* I observed very lit- 
tle gas escape from these waters and their solid 
contents were carbonate of lime, sulphate of 
lime, and a very little iron in some of the springs. 
There are, however, reasons for supposing that 
in ancient times the mineral constituents of 
these springs have not been exactly what they 
are now. Being desirous of satisfying myseM 
whether the travertine was of an uniform qual- 
ity, I commenced digging into it about 25 feet 
from the level of the brook, and having got into 
it somewhat more than a foot, I found a great 
increase of sulphate of lime, and much lower 
down I came to a dark red oxide of iron in nodu- 
lar reniform masses, taking a botryoidal form. 
The sulphate of lime was deposited in layers 
from a line to two inches thick. Beneath these 
were masses of ferruginous sandstone belonging 
to the ridge, which seemed to have been at some 
time loose, and were now re-cemented by the 
mineral deposits from the water, which had fill- 
ed up all the interstices. I took out one of the 
largest of these nodules, the circumferential crust 
of which in some parts was two and a half inch- 
es thick, of rich hematite ore, whilst its interior 
was almost filled with gypsum. From all the 
circumstances connected with these nodules, I 
was inclined to think that they had been depos- 
ited in ancient times by strong chalybeate wa- 
ters, and that they had become aggregated by 
molecular attraction. It was very evident that 
where the greatest quantities of red oxide were, 
a stream of water had passed for a long period 
of time, holding iron and sulphate of lime in so- 
lution, and anterior to the period of the present 
waters, whose deposits of travertine now cover 
the ferruginous deposits below. Nor is it im- 
probable that spiings of a similar kind may yet 
exist, for in a low cavity close to the brook I 
perceived a stream of hot water with red oxide 
neai it, and upon examining it minutely I foimd 



* Dr. Daubeny having in 1837 visited this place and ex- 
iruniT ed the g-aseous contents of these waters nn the spot, I 
quote from hira, as better authority than myself for an anal- 
ysis: 

Carbonic acid . . . 4.0 
Nitrogen .... 92.4 
Oxygen . . . .7.6 

104 



the same process going on, iron depositing on 
the sides, and soft seams of sulphate of lime al- 
ready establishing themselves. Whether this 
chalybeate* character in the hot water of the cav- 
ity last spoken of be not acquired— as thermal 
waters may acquire some of their properties, in 
transitu — is a fact I would not pretend to speak 
positively upon; many springs that rise through 
beds of decomposed shale and coal loaded with 
sulphuret of iron, undoubtedly are often atTected 
as they pass through them, and become sulphu- 
retted ; but the carbonate of lime, and the pro- 
digious quantity of caloric which has for such 
immense periods of time raised the temperature 
of these springs, must have their origin in those 
depths whence the intrusive rocks, the veins of 
micaceous iron, and various other mineral phe- 
nomena in this region, are derived. 



CHAPTER XXX. 

Curious and beautiful Mineral structure of the adjacent 
Country— Locality whence the Indians procured the Min- 
eral for their Arrow Heads— An unsophisticated "Bar- 
hunter"' — Panthersfondof Buffalo Tongues— Strange sin- 
gle Combat betwixt a Hunter and a male Buffalo— Rea- 
soning power of the Animal — State of the Hunter's Nerves 
after the battle. 

Some person having shown me specimens of 
a kind of novaculite which they used as hones 
for their razors, I took a guide to the locality 
whence they were procured, and after clamber- 
ing over a very rugged country for three miles, 
we came to one of the wildest regions imagina- 
ble and singularly curious. It was altogether' 
broken up into short ridges and isolated cones, 
from 300 to 500 feet above'the level of the streams 
that meandered amongst their bases in contract- 
ed gorges from 15 to 40 yards wide. I had con- 
stantly observed in all the rocks west of the Mis- 
sissippi a strong tendency to a siliceous charac- 
ter associated with iron. In Missouri the sub- 
stitution of siliceous for calcareous matter was 
very striking, and it was not less so in the north- 
ern parts of Arkansas. Ever since we left Lit- 
tle Red River we had been upon a quartzose 
sandstone reposing on a clayey slate, and from 
a pentramite which Mr. Hetiderson assured me 
he had taken out of this sandstone near the 
Mammelles (the only fossil I saw), and from 
other considerations, I was disposed to consider 
this sandstone as the equivalent of the old red 
sandstone of Europe. The curious gradations 
of this siliceous matter, in the forms of old red 
sandstone, flint, hornstone, and quartzose rock, 
had interested me much : but my admiration was 
unbounded when I discoverod that all the ridges 
and coves of the broken country I was now wan- 
dering in, were composed of a beautiful novacu- 
lite of a pearly semitransparent nature, indeed 
quite opalescent in places, lying in vertical lam- 
ina so brittle and so closely packed together, that 
it was very difl^cult to detach a piece even six 
inches long without the aid of proper tools; but 
when detached, the rock presented singularly pure 
glossy natural faces, and was occasionally tin- 
ged, in a very pleasing manner, with metallic 
solutions. As far as my own experience and 
information goes, the mineral structure of this 
part of the country is as curious and rare as 
anything that has yet been seen. 



* In the last moments of my stay at the Hot Springs I 
found nodules of iron, similar to that spoken of. on the west 
side of the hill where the springs are, and some conglom- 
erate firmly held together by ferruginous cement. 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



ii: 



Ascending a very lofty hill composed entirely 
of this mineral, we found several large pits, re- 
sembling inverted cones, some of which were 
from 20 to 30 feet deep and as many in diameter, 
the insides and bottoms of which were covered 
with chips of this beautiful mineral, some white, 
some carmine, some blue, and many quite opal- 
escent. In and near these pits round and lung 
pieces of hard greenstone— which I had seen in 
place about 18 miles distant — were scattered 
about, but none of them too large lor the hand. 
These were undoubtedly the quarries from 
whence the Indians, when they possessed the 
country, obtained the materials for making their 
arrow 'heads and spears, for those which I had 
found in the ploughed field in Magnet Cove 
were made of this mineral. The pieces of hard 
greenstone were the tools the Indians worked 
with, and the rough mineral when procured was 
taken to their villages to be manufactured: I 
had many opportunities subsequently of feeling 
assured of this, upon finding, amidst the circu- 
lar holes and mounds where their now fallen 
lodges once stood, prodigious quantities of these 
chips and arrow heads that had been broken in 
the act of making them. 

From this place we scrambled to the top of 
the loftiest cone we could see, and had a very 
fine view of the country. From the summit of 
the elevation where we stood, looking south, an 
extensive pine plain appeared, perhaps eight 
miles wide, whilst on our right to the S.S.W., 
about fifteen miles distant, was a ridge where 
one of the branches of the Washita rises, and 
which circled round to the E.S.E., having the 
Washita on its north flank. Most of the ridges 
seemed to curve, and, after running a distance 
of from two to fifteen miles, would terminate. 
To the east we thought we recognised the high- 
lands about the Mammelle, which were near for- 
ty miles in a straight line from us. 

Having made our observations in this part of 
the country, I endeavoured to procure a guide to 
cross the country with us to cantonment Tow- 
son, a military post of the United States on the 
Mexican frontier, distant in a straight line about 
120 miles. All roads of every kind terminate at 
the Hot Springs; beyond them there is nothing 
but the unbroken wilderness, the trails and fords 
of which are only known to a few hunters. We 
accordingly entered into a negotiation with a 
backwoodsman, who was highly recommended 
for his resolution and knowledge of the country ; 
but he was far from being eager to engage in our 
service, objecting that this was the season when 
bear-hunting commences ; and although he ad- 
mitted that I ofl^ered him more money than he 
could earn, yet, he said, if he was to go, " he 
couldn't stand it, 'case the bars was so fat this 
year." As I could not hope to compensate this 
Nimrod of the woods for the enjoyment he would 
have at his annual sport — a feeling I could ap- 
preciate—I was obliged, though with great reluc- 
tance, to change my plan, for I was exceedingly 
anxious to continue the examination of these 
siliceous ridges to the south-west. This man 
was a very singular fellow, who shunned socie- 
ty, was dressed altogether in the skins of ani- 
mals he had killed, and seemed never to have 
been washed, and to have no beard. He lived 
in the woods many miles from the Springs, and 
onlv visited them when he had bear and deer 
skins to sell. He appeared, however, to take an 
iniere-t in us, and advised us strongly not to at- 
tempt the excursion alone, for he said that the 



ordinary fords could not be passed at this season 
without swimming the now swollen rivers, and 
that to get through the country we should be obli- 
ged to go round the heads of the streams, which 
would make the distance equal to at least 200 
miles. Adding to these circumstances the cold- 
ness of the weather and the extreme dilliculty we 
should most probably find in subsisting ourselves^ 
we thought the attempt would not be justifiable, 
and turned our attention to a more Irequented. 
and practicable route. The account this maa 
gave me of the manner in which the bear is pur- 
sued by sxiuie of the professed and more opulent 
hunters was curious. He said that some of 
them, who had great numbers of cattle roaming 
at large in the forests around them, were so pas- 
sionately fond of the sport, that they maintained 
stout teams of dogs until the hunting season com- 
menced, by slaying beeves for them. 

In summer, when there is no mast. Bruin is 
thin and hungry, and boldly intrudes upon the 
settlements, where there are any, to devour the 
hogs. If the settler catches him on his grounds 
he kills him, but he is too meagre and his skia 
is to light to tempt him far from home ; he choos- 
es another season for that, when the bears are. 
fat, can surrender a good skin and from twenty 
to twenty-five gallons of oil, and have retired ta 
the rich bottoms where the cane-brakes are- 
Then out he sallies, prepared for an absence of 
several weeks, dressed in a jacket and leggings- 
of buckskin, for garments of any other material 
would soon be torn from his back by the briars. 
When he gets to the scene of operations he kills 
two or three buffaloes, if he can, for their skins,, 
which he hangs up on poles in the form of a 
tent, leaving one side open in front of his fire, to- 
wards which his feet are placed when he sleeps. 
This is also his storehouse : his skins, his meat,, 
his oil, are all deposited here, until their accu- 
mulation induces him either to take them home 
or send them by an assistant. As to what is 
called bear's meat, it is literally nothing but the 
fat of the omentuin. The fleshy part is all given 
to the dogs. Of this fat, which the hunters call 
the fleece, they are ravenously fond, preferring it 
to everything else on account of its sweet taste, 
and because they can eat a great deal without 
incommoding themselves. Occasionally the 
hunter regales himself with venison when he is 
in a country where the deer abound, but pleasure 
with him is made subordinate to business, and. 
it will take him as much time to kill and flay a 
deer of the value of one dollar, as it will to se- 
cure a bear worth twenty. But bears, deer, and. 
buffallo do not comprehend all the animals he 
has to deal with ; he has to protect his stores, 
during his absence from his skin-lodge in the. 
daytime from wolves and panthers, and is not 
always able to do it even when he is there, as- 
the following anecdote, so illustrative of the hunt- 
er's life, and which I had directly from the per- 
son it relates to, will show: — 

This man had amassed a great many spoils 
in his tent, and had put about twenty bufiEala 
tongues in a trough which stood inside, but. 
near to the entrance. One night returning ex- 
ceedingly fatigued, he slept very soundly, andoa 
awakening discovered that all his buffalo tongues 
were gone. He was vexed at his negligence, 
and imputed the theft lo some wolves that he 
knew were prowling abort. Having taken 
something to eat, he went to a cane-break in the 
vicinity, and had not gone far when he heard a 
low whining cry, and, looking in that direction. 



112 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



he saw something through the thick canes play- 
ing about like a cat's tail, and immediately knew 
it was a panther. Stealing forward and care- 
fully looking he distinguished a head and ears, 
and concluded the animal was stretched upon a 
log, a posture they are very fond of when they 
are not hunting. Raising his gun, he fired, and 
the beast, mortally wounded, made a prodigious 
jump and attempted to run, but fell and died in 
a few minutes. He immediately skinned it, and 
curious to learn whether this panther had been 
the midnight depredator, he slit his paunch open, 
and there found his buffalo tongues, but by no 
means in a stale to be sent to the London mar- 
ket. This man told me that the panther when 
3iot hungry flies from man, and takes to a tree if 
the smallest dog pursues him, but when he is 
gaunt and voracious he is dangerous, springing 
upon his prey from a log or branch, and even 
darting through the fire of the bivouac upon the 
hunter himseif, who then takes to his knife. He 
said it was a good plan to put the entrails of a 
bear near the lodge at night to " compliment" 
any panther that might be prowling nigh, a piece 
of politeness that no doubt would appear very 
refined to poor Bruin, if he could be made.to un- 
derstand it. 

But the most interesting hunter's story I have 
ever heard was told me by our host, Mr. Per- 
cival, who has followed the forest chase from 
his youth. In 1807 he was on a trapping expe- 
dition with two companions on the Washita, 
when they left him to kill buffalo, bear, and the 
larger game ; and he remained to trap the streams 
for beaver. He had not met with very good suc- 
cess, and had been without meat about twenty- 
f6ur hours, when, turning a small bend of the 
river, he espied a noble-looking old male buffalo 
lying down on the beach. Having secured his j 
canoe, hecreptsoftly through acorn-brake, which I 
lay between the animal and himself, and fired. \ 
The shot was an indifferent one, and only 
•wounded the animal in the side, but it roused 
him, and having crossed the river he soon laid 
down again. This was about noon, when the 
animal, having grazed, was resting himself in a 
cool place. Percival now crossed the river also 
in his canoe, and got into the woods, which were 
there very open, and somewhat broken by little 
patches of prairie land, a very frequent occur- 
rence in these parts of Arkansas, where forest 
and prairie often seem to be contending for the 
mastery. But the bull being suspicious, rose 
before the hunter came near enough to him, and 
took to the open woods. Percival was an ex- 
perienced hunter; he had killed several hundred 
buffaloes, and knew their tempers in every sort 
of situation. He knew that the animal, when 
in large herds, was easily mastered, and was 
well aware that when alone he was sometimes 
dogged and even dangerous ; he therefore fol- 
lowed his prey cautiously for about a mile,- 
knowing that he would lie down again ere long. 
The buffalo now stopped, and Percival got 
■within fifty yards of him, watching an oppor- 
tunity to strike him mortally; but the beast, see- 
inghisenemy so near, wheeled completely round, 
•put his huge shag^gy head close to the ground be- 
fore his fore feet, as is their custom when they 
attack each other, and rapidly advanced upon 
the hunter, who instantly fired, and put his ball 
through the bull's nose; but seeing the temper 
the beast was in, and knowing what a serious 
antagonist he was when on the offensive, he also 
immediately turned and fled. 



In running down a short hill some briars threw 
him down, and he dropped his gun. There was 
a tree not far from him of about eighteen inches 
diameter, and every thing seemed to depend upon 
his reaching it; but as he rose to make a push 
for it, the buffalo struck him on the fleshy part 
of the hip with his horn, and slightly wounded 
him. Before the beast, however, could wheel 
round upon him again, he gained the tree, upon 
which all the chance he had of preserving his 
life rested. A very few feet from this tree grew 
a sapling, about four or five inches in diameter, 
a most fortunate circumstance for the hunter, as 
it contributed materially to save his life. The 
buffalo now doggedly followed up his purpose 
of destroying his adversary, and a system of 
attack and defence commenced that, perhaps, is 
without a parallel. The buffalo went round and 
round the tree pursuing the man, jumping at 
him in the peculiar manner of that animal, every 
time he thought there was a chance of hitting 
him; whilst Percival, grasping the tree with his 
arms, swung himself round it with greater ra- 
pidity than the animal could follow him. In 
this manner the buffalo harassed him ynorc than 
four hours, until his hands became so sore with 
rubbing against the rough bark of the oak tree, 
and his limbs so fatigued, that he began to be 
disheartened. 

In going round the tree, the buffalo would 
sometimes pass between it and the sapling; but 
the distance between them was so narrow, that 
it inconvenienced him, especially when he want- 
ed to make his jumps; he therefore frequently 
went round the sapling instead of going inside 
of it. The time thus consumed was precious to 
Percival; it enabld him to breathe, and to con- 
sider how he should defend himself 

After so many hours' fruitless labour, the bull 
seemed to have lost his pristine vigour, and be- 
came slower in his motions: he would now 
make his short start, preparatory to his jump, 
only at intervals; and even then he jumped 
doubtingly, as if he saw that Percival would 
avoid his" blow by swinging to the other side. 
It was evident he was baffled, and was consid- 
ering what he should do. Still continuing in 
his course round the tree, but in this slow man- 
ner, he at length made an extraordinary feint 
that does honour to the reasoning powers of the 
buffalo family. He made his little start as 
usual, and when Percival swung himself round, 
the bull, instead of aiming his blow in the direc- 
tion he had been accustomed to do, suddenly 
turned to that side of the tree where Percival 
would be brought when he had swung himself 
round, and struck with all his might. The feint 
had almost succeeded: Percival only just saved 
his head, and received a severe contusion on his 
arm, which was paralyzed for an instant. He 
now began to despair of saving his life, his limbs 
trembled under him, he thought the buffalo would 
wear him out, and it was so inexpressibly pain- 
ful to him to carry on this singular defence, that 
at one time he entertained the idea of leaving 
the tree, and permitting the anirnnl to destroy 
him, as a mode of saving himself from pain and 
anxiety that were intolerable. 

But the buffalo, just at that time giving de- 
cided symptoms of being as tired as himself, 
now stopped for a few minutes, and Percival 
took courage. Remembering that he had his 
butcher's knife in his breast he took it out, and 
began to contrive plans of offence; and when 
the bull, having rested awhile, recommenced his 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



113 



old rounds, Percival took advantage of the slow- 
ness of his moiions, and using a great deal of 
address and managemenc, contrived in the course 
of hal'f an hour to stab and cut him in a dozen 
different places. The animal now became weak 
from loss of blood, and although he continued to 
walk round the tree made no more jumps, con- 
tenting himself with keeping his head and neck 
close w it. This closed the conflict, for it en- 
abled Percival to extend his right arm, and give 
him two deadly stabs in the eyes. Nothing 
could exceed the frantic rage of the unwieldy 
animal when he had lost his sight; he bellowed, 
he groaned, he pawed the ground, and gave out 
every sign of conscious ruin and immitigable 
fury; he leaned against the sapling for support, 
and twice knocked himself down by rushmg 
with his head at the large tree. The scond 
fall terminated this strange tragic combat, which 
had now lasted nearly six hours. The buflalo 
had not strength to rise, and the conqueror, step- 
ping up to him, and lifting up his nigh shoulder, 
cut all the flesh and ligaments loose, and turned 
it over his back. He then, after resting himself 
a few minutes, skinned the beast, took a part of 
the meat to his canoe, made a fire, broiled and 
ate it. 

Of the intense anxiety of mind produced in 
the hunter by this conflict, an idea may be form- 
ed from the fact that when he joined his com- 
panions after a separation of forty days, they 
asked why he looked so pale and emaciated, and 
inquired "if he had been down with the fever." 
He then related to them his adventure with the 
buffalo, adding that from that very evening when 
he prevailed over the animal, he had never got 
any quiet rest; and so severely had his nervous 
system been shaken, that as soon as the occu- 
pations of the day were over and he had lain 
down to rest, the image of the resolute and pow- 
erlul animal always came before him, putting his 
life in jeopardy in a thousand ways, and cre- 
ating in him such a desperate agitation of mind, 
that he was constantly jumping up from the 
ground to defend himself; such was his state, 
that he who had been formerly proverbial for his 
daring and resolution, now trembled with appre- 
hension, even when a covey of quails unexpect- 
edly flushed before him. Mr. Percival told me 
that three months had elapsed after this adven- 
ture before his sleep became tranquil, and that, 
although twenty-seven years had now passed 
away, every sudden noise would disconcert him, 
even if it were the crowing of a cock. Ten 
)-ears ago he had the curiosity to visit the place 
where so memorable a passage in his life oc- 
curred, and he found the bark of the tree sufli- 
ciently torn and abraided to have identified it, 
even if th? bones of his ancient adversary had 
not been there. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

Leave the ITnt Spring-s— Regain the " Military Rond," and 
cross the Washita— How to ilriuk coffee made of Acorns— 
The Cado River — Mrs. Barknian, her extraordinary ac- 
complishments — A Hnnter's House and Family — Tertiary 
Dep'jsits — A Travelling Court-house — A Knot of Gani- 

WpTR A I'nddv croincr In XfiYriQ 



jjep'JSiTs — A 1 ravelling <,ourt-i 
biers — A Paddy going to Texas. 



The preparations for our departure having 
been made, we took leave of Mr. Percival and 
our acquaintances here on the Gth of December 
Humble as the lodgings assigned to ourselves 
and the hogs had been, and rude as was our fare. 



yet noihing could be more obliging than the con- 
duct ofevery body to us. None of ihe cavalieros 
of Littlft Rock were here, we led veiy quiet lives, 
and we left the place with our sincere good wishes 
for the welfare of its inhabitants. On reaching 
the Gulfer* we found it very much swelled and 
too diflicult to cross at the usual (brd. We 
therefore went a little lower down and sounded 
wilh a long pole. The bank was two feet from 
the water, and it was evident that we must either 
both of us sit in the waggon and make Missouri 
drop into the flood, which was roaring furiously, 
at the risk of all tumbling over together, or one 
of us must first get into the river to encourage 
the horse. My son, therefore, went into the 
stream, and I drove up to the edge of the bank. 
Our nag, though very docile, had not nerve 
euough for the noise the water made, and all we 
could prevail upon him to do was to slide dowa 
wilh his fore-feet and lie down in the shafts, 
leaving me in the waggon on the bank at the 
mercy of any of his side-jerks, the least of which 
would have overturned the \yaggon. As this 
would most probably have been attended wilh the 
loss of everything we had, I felt very anxious; 
but my son coaxing him in front and the whip 
coaxing him in the rear, he suddenly sprang up, 
dragged the waggon into the river, and, taking 
care to keep him on the stretch in the shallow- 
est part of the rapid, we happily succeeded in 
getting to the opposite bank without breaking 
anything. Here we stopped to change our 
clothes, and then pursued our journey. 

When we had proceeded eight miles from the 
Hot Springs, I lelt the vehicle, and walked about 
a mile to take a look at the Washita, which is 
here a broad muddy stream flowing over the slate 
through a very picturesque country. Four miles 
farther on, in attempting to cross another stream 
near one Turner's, we fairly upset our concern 
amongst the hidden rocks, but. happily broke no- 
thing, though it took us sometime to make afire 
and put our persons into a comfortable state 
again. The traveller upon an excursion of this 
kind finds it the greatest of all evils to be put 
hors de combat as to proceeding on. As long as 
everything is new he is delighted; but he has to 
endure so much privation when unexpectedly de- 
tained — perhaps in a wilderness which pre.^ents 
no novelty — that he is ready to bear any incon- 
venience rather than remain stationary. 

In the evening we took up our old quarters at 
Mrs. Conway's, in Magnet Cove, who received 
us in a very friendly manner. When we rose in 
the morning we had the pleasure of meeting her 
husband, who had arrived during the night, r nd 
of breakfasting with him ; after which, having 
received his direction for a short cut to the 
Washita, we made our bows, and, going about 
two miles through Ihe open pine-woods at the 
foot of the exterior part of the cove, which was 
entirely covered with deciduous trees, got into a 
track which led us for eight miles through a wild 
romantic flinty country, aboundinsr in knobs and 
little valesadmirably watered. Outof this track 
we emerged upon tlie Military Road, a mile and 

* In .Tune, 18.S3, when the preat rise of the Arkaii.'^as took 
plaee, the backwater of the Mississippi pressed upon Red 
River and its tributaries so much, that the waters of the 
Washita covered all the low country through which the 
Gulfer flows. I was informed by some settlers in the neigh- 
bourhood that for near three weeks *hey were completely 
isolated ; the cows had to swim backwards and forwards 
from the uplands where they grazed to suckle their calves, 
the lower floors of the cabins were in the water, and th 
settlers went to the woods in canoes. 



114 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA 



a half from the ferry at the Washita. This fine 
river, at the point where we reached it, is about 
200 yards broad, and the view to the west is very 
beautiful, a graceful little island presenting it- 
self in the centre of the. stream, which terminates 
in a lofty hill of sandstone covered with pines 
and oaks. Having crossed the river in a ferry- 
boat, we found that the road for a considerable 
distance ran parallel with it, and was e.xceeding- 
ly wet and springy. At the end of four miles 
we left this wet ground, and got again upon a 
sandstone country with high knolls, and continu- 
ed on it lor five miles, until we descended into a 
bottom through which a stream called Prairie 
Baijoit runs, and here we stopped at a settler's 
called Mitchell. 

This was one of the most wretched places we 
had yet met with in our journey. The supper con- 
sisted of some pieces of dirty-looking fried pork, 
corn-bread eight days old, mixed up with lumps 
of dirt, and coffee made of burnt acorns and 
maize ; they had neither milk, sugar, nor butter. 
Just as we were sitting down to it two hours al'ter 
dark, Colonel Conway rode up: he laughed at 
our lastidiousness, and advised us to drink .some 
of the 6Wft-coffee, which he had often done with 
success when he could get nothing else; and he 
showed us how to get through the operation, by 
nipping his nose with his fingers and swallowing 
it exactly as if it had been castor-oil. He left 
us soon afterwards, saying that he was obliged 
to ride the greatest part of the night to the place 
where the sale of government lands was taking 
place. We passed a wretched night on the hard 
boards of a sort of barrack, into which the wind 
freely entered, and were glad when morning 
dawned to creep to the fire. 

We now discovered that our waggon was in 
want of serious repairs, and that if we advanced 
any farther with it we should probably break 
down where we could obtain no assistance. 
This was, indeed, a dilemma, as we had only 
one horse and no saddle; upon consultation, 
however, with our host, he engaged to let us have 
a horse and an old saddle, and sent to his next 
neighbour to borrow another, upon securing 
which we determined to leave the waggon with 
our trunks as a deposit until we returned the 
horse. Our breakfast was in keeping with every- 
thing we had found here; so after putting a few 
things up in a bag, we started for the Caddo 
River, about seventeen miles off. For fourteen 
miles of this distance our route lay amongst 
sandstone hills and isolated knolls of petro-sili- 
ceous matter, many of which approached in their 
structure to the novaculite of the Hot Springs. 
The streams were numerous, and some of them 
very much swelled. The Candleberry Myrtle 
{Mi/rica ccrifcra) was exceedingly abundant on 
these knolls, amongst which we had constantly 
some deer in sight, besides numerous flocks of 
well-grown wild turkeys; these often came strut- 
ting across the road showing their beautiful glossy 
plumage to the greatest advantage, and on per- 
ceiving us would take flight with as strong a 
wing as the wild-goose, wheeling around and 
then alighting upon the tallest pine trees. It was 
altogether a fine wild romantic ride, changing 
from broken hills to numerous streams — some 
of which were very much swollen — that flowed 
through limited bottoms of great tertility. 

Three miles before we reached the Caddo, the 
country began to descend, and a change soon 
took place in the aspect of nature, and of every- 
thing around us. Having crossed the ferry 



where the river is about 100 yards wide, we en- 
tered upon an extensive rich bottom of cane- 
brake, and not long after came to a no less ex- 
traordinary thing than a brick house, belonging 
to a person of the name of Barkman. This 
man, whose father was a German, came into the 
country many years ago in the character of a 
pedlar, and having married the daughter of one 
Davis, a famous hunter, settled here, became a 
trader, and was now very well to do in the world. 
In the mean time old Davis and his sons — all of 
whom were brought up without any other school- 
master than the rifle — continued their favourite 
wandering vocation, looking up to the opulent 
Barkman as the great man of the family. Mr. 
Barkman we did not see, but 1 shall certain ly 
not forget his lady soon, as I have never seen 
any one, as far as manners and exterior went, 
with less pretensions to be classed with the fem- 
inine gender. All her accomplishments seem- 
ed to me to have a decided learning the other 
way. She chewed tobacco, she smoked a pipe, 
she drank whiskey, and cursed and swore as 
heartily as any backwoodsman, all at the same 
time; doing quite as much vulgarity as (bur 
male blackguards could do, and with as much~ 
ease as if she had been an automaton set to do 
it with clockwork machinery. She must have 
been a person of surprising powers in her youth, 
for I was infoimed that she was now compara- 
tively refined to what she had been before her 
marriage ; at that period, so full of interest to a 
lover, she was commonly known by the name 
of old Davis's "She Bar." 

We had an opportunity of seeing one of her 
extraordinary brothers, a genuine hunter, dress- 
ed in leather prepared by himself from the skins 
of animals he had killed, as he was going with 
his rifle on his shoulder, and his dogs, some 
twenty miles off" to hunt bears. This man, al- 
though between thirty and forty years old, had . 
never been out of this neighbourhood, and had 
no iciea of the world beyond his own pursuits, 
and that which he saw going on around him. 
His brother-in-law Barkman he considered to 
be the first man in the whole country; people 
that came from Little Rock he had not a strong 
predilection lor, not because they were unworthy, 
but because so many lawyers lived there; the 
government of the United States he looked upon 
with horror, because they sold the lands and 
broke up the cane-brakes : but Texa-s he appro- 
ved of highly, saying that he had " heern there 
was no sich thing as a government there, and 
not one varmint of^a lawyer in the hull place." 
.'Vs his house was not very far from Barkman's, 
I accompanied this worthy there to see it, and 
on our way had a good deal of curious conver- 
sation with him, learning from him amongst 
other things that he had "been raised on fat bar's 
meat," as all his family had been, and that he- 
loved it better than anything. The cabin of this 
fellow corresponded with his manners, and was 
a sort of permanent camping out of doors; the 
logs of it were at least six inches apart, the in- 
terstices, without any filling in, staring wide, 
open; one of the gable ends was entirely want- 
ing, the roof was only closed at one end, atid at 
the other some bed clothes were heaped togeth- 
er in a corner upon a rough floor, and his <"ami- 
]y, consisting of a wife and several young chil- 
dren, were warming themselves at a fire — nM in- 
the hmise, but out of doors. How they managed 
during long periods of cold wet weather may he 
imagined, but they all seemed contented, and 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



115 



even cheerful. As to himself, he seemed quite 
indifferent about this alfresco style oC living: his 
happiness was found only in the cane-brake, 
"driving the bars about," "as he said, anu sleep- 
ing near a good fire. Mrs. Barkman, notwith- 
standing her habits, was not deficient in good 
nature to us: they had killed a young steer the 
day before our arrival, and a dish of fat boiled 
rilis was set before us, with good bread, of which 
we made an excellent meal, having been with- 
out (iiod ever since we left Mrs. Conway's the 
morning before. 

Til is place is the site of an ancient village of 
the Caddo Indians; a large mound with trees 
growing on it, and other indications of their res- 
idence, still exist there; and a sweet sequester- 
ed situation it must have been to them, for the 
liver contains good fish, the country abounds in 
game, and the sandstone, with its pines, is here 
exchanged for a loose soil of the greatest fertili- 
ty, and deciduous trees peculiar to these latitudes. 
On sallying out, afier our good cheer, we were 
exceedingly pleased with the scene around us; 
the sun was shining brilliantly, flocks of parro- 
quets were wheeling and screaming around, and 
the trumpet tone of the ivory-billed woodpecker 
was frequenily heard. 

On examining the bed of the Caddo, I found 
it consisted of tertiary limestone, exactly the 
same as that I had seen at Little Rock, and pro- 
cured some good specimens of turritella and oth- 
er fossils. The Caddo empties into the Washita, 
two miles below Barkman's, and about four 
utiles ftrther down I was informed there were 
yome suit wells trom which he annually makes 
a good deal of salt. The wells are dug through 
a black soil, but whether the brine comes through 
a lower rock, or they have had to bore into one, 
no one could explain to me: the process of ma- 
king it, however, seems to be a very rough one, 
and the salt produced is dirty and imperfect. 
From the account they gave me, the brine in the 
wells is so diluted with the water from the 
Washita, that it takes 150 gallons of water to 
make one bushel of bad salt. There is also said 
to be gypsum about six miles off, near one Will- 
iams's, in the "rotten limestone" which they 
said overlaid the whole country. 

From Barkman's we proceeded to the Tour- 
noise Creek, said to be 15 iniles off, always upon 
flat good land, occasionally sandv, with heavy 
b«ds of a bluish green calcareous clay in all the 
ravines; and from the description J obtained of 
the country farther to the south, I thought it 
probable we should keep upon the tertiary beds 
all the way to the Mexican frontier. We found 
no fossils nor casts of .shells in the blue clay, 
which strongly resembles some of the beds ex- 
tending from Richmond, in Virginia, down to 
Shirley, on James River, where the clay con- 
tains lumps of calcareous matter with traces of 
sulphate of lime. We crossed several large 
creeks during the afternoon, and at night put up 
at a famous hunter's called Hi.f^nitr, who lived 
in a solitary log cabin that had once been the 
court-house for the county of Clark. From the 
conspicuous manner in which the word " Crit- 
tenden" appeared upon our maps as the princi- 
pal county town, I had formed some slight ex- 
pectations of seeing something a liitle out of the 
way, and of getting .some sort of lodgings for a 
day or two to look at the country: all this after- 
noon we had been expecting to arrive at Crit 
tenden in vain, and indeed thought of inquiring 
at an old cabin we passed, how far it was ahead I 



of us, but not wishing to lose time, we drove on 
until we came to Hignite's. Our first quesiion 
was, "How far is it to Crittenden 1" The an- 
swer we received was, that tlie old cabin we had 
passed five miles back was Crittenden, that it 
had been once at his house, but that he believed', 
it was going to be at Greenville. Finding that 
Crittenden, like the house of Loretto, was anon- 
resident, we determined to stop where we were, 
especially when we found we were at a hunter^^ 
whose name had already reached us. ^" 

This bandying about of court-houses is insep- 
arable from such a state of the settlements in 
this new country as requires some administra- 
tion of law. The counties are t«n times as large 
as they are eventually destined to be, and every- 
thing is a matter of expediency until populatioa 
fills up the space a little. Before there are any 
county towns or court-houses, the cabin of some 
settler is made temporarily the court-hotise, which, 
is changed from place to place to accommodate 
those at a distance; and as the population in- 
creases, new counties are set off from the old 
one, into territories sufficiently compact to con- 
stitute a county where every man can live con- 
tentedly, bearing his share of the taxes and the 
public duties. 

On entering Hignite's we found several smarts- 
men there — not powder-and-shot sportsmen, but 
knights of the/«ro and rouge et noir tables. The 
principal person was the Mr. Tunstall whose 
house we had passed a little south of White 
River. My host, old Meriwether, had let us a 
liitle into his character, which had been confirm- 
ed to me by others. He was said to be a very 
enterprising man, to possess some property, but 
to indulge excessively in horse-racing and cards. 
We had heard also that he generally travelled 
with some persons who passed for travellers like 
himself, but who, in fact, were in his pay, for 
the purpose of inciting others to play and to pro- 
cure him bets. The moment, therefore, our host 
told me that " Tunstall was in his house," I was 
fully prepared for the scene that followed. 

Whilst supper was preparing, Mr. Tunstall 
entered into conversation with me, stating that 
he had been at some races where the sale for 
government lands on Red River was in prog- 
ress, but that it "was dull times," for people 
seemed to be thinking of nothing but going to 
Texa.s. His conversation was sensible and en- 
tertaining, and he evidently wanted to inspire 
me with a favourable opinion of himself: the 
other men in the house kept themselves silent, 
and appeared to know as little about him as they 
did about us. This was rather over-acting their 
part, and I began to su.spect their intentions. As 
soon as we had supped, and drew near to the 
fire, one of the company, who had all the marks 
of a broken-down swell abC"! I^iIiTj ""^"' ^° ^ 
box, and taking out some cards, "laid them ve."^" 
artistically down on the table. Upon which 
alter awhile, two others went to the table one 
ol them , -saving in a drawling tone, "I reckon I'll 
take a hand." But Mr. Tunstall .seeing that we 
did not even look at the partv, remained with us 
at the fire, and it was .some time before he turn- 
r, Jr°,!^'^' f"^ '" ^ ^^^y winning manner vnid 
T y^fhJ '^" ' ''^'■^ '''^ f^*^'^ ^ hand, if you do '' 
T told Mr. Tuns^tall that we were both very much 
fatigued and should go to bed as soon as we 
knew where we were to sleep. One of the fel- 
lows at the (able now said, "Mister, if you pre- 
f7.r roulette, I'll take one out of the box what I've 
got here." Tunstall, perceiving '^at this was 



116 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA 



letting the cat out of the bag too early, said no 
more to me about playing, but sat down to faro 
■with the rest, and they all pretended to be play- 
ing very earnestly. They had not played off, 
however, their last coup upon me, and in about 
a quarter of an hour Mr. Tunstall went to a box 
belonging to himself, and took out a runlet con- 
taining brandy: pouring some of it out, he very 
courteously otiered it to myself and my son. I 
made him" my acknowledgments, but said that 
we were not in the habit of drinking brandy or 
any kind of spirituous liquors; that we were al- 
ways happy when we could get milk, and never 
wanted anything else. After this milksop dec- 
laration, Mr. Tunstall seemed to thmk us worth 
BO further attention ; he poured the brandy back 
into the runlet, without offering any to the other 
genllemen travellers, and they put their cards 
back again into the box, for it seemed somehow 
as if the galne could not proceed unless we join- 
ed in it. 

Such a coarse trap, and set in such a coarse 
manner, was fitted for such low gamblers as 
these, who have an idea — perhaps justified by 
their success — that no man can resist cards and 
brandy. We passed the night miserably, stretch- 
ed on some wretched boards in the same room 
with the.se fellow.s, but taking especial care of 
our purses and bag. The voice and language 
of one of these men, who was called Smith — 
pel haps an assumed name — were those of a 
northern man; I was, therefore, disposed to be- 
lieve him when he said he was a New Yorker: 
he had a haa:£;ar(l anrl very unhappy app'c'arance, 
with a ^i^li^Il•|■l^\-|l^ ■ssinn.and seemed altogether 
devoted i:i Mr. 'rimsiall, in whose base service 
perhaps he had cuuscKiusly reached the lowest 
stage of human degiadatiou. 

In the morning, these contemptible wretches 
sat down at the same table with us to breakfast; 
their conversation was infamous, and accorded 
well with their degraded condiiion. They had 
evidently been engaged in all sorts of frauds and 
villanies, and seemed to glory in their infamy. 
A kind of waggon, belonging to Tunstall, now 
came to the door, with two negro boys belonging 
to him, who had acted as jockeys at the races. 
Into this they all got, and Mr. Tunstall— who 
had pretended the preceding evening that he was 
a stranger to the other men — could not avoid 
seeing that I was aware he was the head of a 
travelling gang of sharpers. A short time before 
they drove from the door, a foolish Irishman, 
who was going to Texas, rode up on a neat 
sprightly pony that had a great many good 
points. ' Tunstall offered to swap a huge raw- 
boned anin>al, which one of his negro boys rode, 
for this pony, telling the Irishman "it was worth 
\}i.K(i times as much, but he somehow liked the 
appearance of the ponv." Taking Paddy into 
the house, they plied hi "ith brandv until his 
discretioi ecame endan; d hv the dimensions 
of the horse : it was evi when he came out, 
that to he at the top of s....i " a baste" was run- 
m-R-y in his head. Hignite endeavoured to make 
hinr prudent, and told him if his ponv was a 
good ;>ne he had better stick to him. The poor 
silly fellow hesitated for a moment, and just 
when we were hoping he would be wise, brandy 
and ambition got the better of him, and he said, 
"Well, I'll just take ye at your word." No 
time was lost ; saddles were exchanged, and the 
gamblers drove off with a horse laugh. Within 
tweniv minutes after ihe.'r departure, the brandy 
having evaporated a iitile, Hignite had perfectly 



persuaded Paddy that the " big baste" was foun- 
dered all to nothing, and was not worth more 
than six dollars. I should certainly have inter- 
fered, a'.d perhaps have prevented this piece of 
knavery, if I had not found out, by the conver- 
sation of Paddy, that he was a " no-government" 
man, and was sure to do something more absurd 
if any body would take the trouble to make him 
drunk again. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

Bear-hunting— Approach a subcretacenus Country— Judge 
Cross— Disputed Territory betwixt Mexico and the Uni- 
ted States — A Prairie Country and subcretaceous Fossils 
— General Houston — Plot to wrest Texas from Meiico — 
Beauty of the Country. 

This morning had been appointed by Hignite, 
our host, to go on his great annual bear-hunt; he 
was a well-known hunter, and we had found 
him an honest, soberly-disposed person. We 
had witnessed his preparations, and saw with, 
adiniration how perfectly he was prepared to 
supply all his wants during his absence, without 
assistance from any one. His dress consisted of 
a hunting jacket and leggings, made of skins 
tanned by himself, and secured by strings formed 
either of ihe same materials or the integuments 
of animals. He had a close cap on made of 
skin, a girdle round his waist, in which were 
stuck his liatchet and his butcher's knife, and a 
heavy rifle weighing sixteen pounds on his 
shoulder. He had two pack-horses to carry In- 
dian corn fur their sulisistence, some necessary 
articles for himself, and to bring back the returns 
of his hunting. The most important part of his 
retinue consisted of eight dogs, which he valued 
very highly, esjiecially the old ones, on account 
of their great sagacity and prudence. This kind 
of sport is so captivating that we would willingly 
have accompanied him, if it would not have oc- 
casioned such a deviation from our plans, and 
have taken up so much time. As Hignite was 
going part of our road, I was, therefore, obliged 
lo content myself with drawing from him a de- 
tailed account of the nature of one of these ex- 
peditions. 

The Washita, in its course to the south-east 
to join Ped River, has in many places an im- 
mense margin of cane-brakes, six or more miles 
broad on each side, and which, before it reaches 
the point of junction, are of much greater mag- 
nitude. These rich bottoms, which are covered 
with stout-jointed canes twenty feet high, as 
thick as they can stand, can never be reclaimed 
until a system of levees or embankments is es- 
tablished to keep them from being inundated. 
Into these brakes the bears {Ursin Amerimnus), 
being now excessively fat with the mast they 
have been livin? upon the whole autumn, retire 
in the month of December, making huge beds for 
then)selves of the cane, and lying there four or 
five months. The hunters, however, assert that 
in this climate that animal does not doze away 
the whole of this long period, but that he walks 
out in fine weather, although he does not eat. 
Some of them had ceased to eat even when I 
was on the Caddo, for Mrs. Barkman's brother 
told me that he had killed a barren she-bear with 
clean intestines, and that he knew thereby that the 
season had arrived for their going into the cane- 
brakes. 

When the hunter arrives near the scene oi his 
operations and has fixed his camp, he generally 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



117 



first tries the higher woodlands in the neighbour- 
hood of the l)ralces, not far from some place 
where a hurricane has uprooted the trees, and 
where brambles, shmbs, and other plants are 
growing amongst them, these being situations 
which the bears love to resort to. Having col- 
lected wood for fuel, he malces a lodge with 
poles and bushes suificient to keep the weather 
out, hopples his horses to prevent their straying 
far,' and puts a bell round the neck of one of 
them. B^ing perfectly prepared he enters upon 
his ground, the breeze comes tainted with the 
scent, the dogs holding up their heads snuff it in, 
and the old ones warily take the lead. They 
find Master Bruin, ponderous with acorns, more 
di>posed to lie still than to run ; but the hunter, 
soon hearing by the voices of his dogs that they 
are closely engaged, hurries on. He finds the 
angry brute hastening away from his assailants, 
after perhaps putting more than one of the young 
ones Iwrs de cmnbai -, but the old dogs seize him 
by the haunch behind, and leave and head him 
the moment he turns round to avenge himself 
His enemies now encircle him ; wherever his 
rear is, it is sure to he bit: he can no longer fly, 
and furious with rage he dashes at the most for- 
ward, seizes him, grasps him with his muscular 
fore-jiaw, gives him the fraternal hug, and fin- 
ishes him sometimes by applying his powerful 
tusks. The rest of the dogs now throw him 
down, jump upon him, and the hunter, to save 
his dogs from being killed, watches his moment, 
goes rapidly behind the bear, grasps a handful of' 
his fur with his left hand to prevent his turning 
to bite him, and "sarves him home" with his 
sharp butcher's knife. After a short struggle, the 
beast dies. 

At other times the hunter waits until the dogs 
have got him into a good position, and lodges a 
rifle-ball under his fore-arm. The bears are im- 
mediately skinned, and the fleece, consisting of 
the lard from which the oil is extracted, is se- 
cured. The lean parts are kept for the dogs, and 
the hunter himself if he likes them, every thing 
being secured from the wolves by hoisting the 
meat into some tree, if the animal'has been kill- 
ed too far from camp to get it there by daylight. 
Such is the account I received from one of the 
most experienced bear-hunters, who frequents 
the brakes of the Washita. 

From Hignite's we pursued our journey in a 
south-west direction, over good bottom land, with 
a great abundance of holly and laurel growing in 
every direction, occasionally coming upon hills 
of rnoderate elevation of sandstone, with pine 
trees, all the streams being transparent, and hav- 
ing gravelly bottoms. At the end of a ride of 
eighteen miles the country descended again, and 
we perc'-^d that we were approaching the Lit- 
tle Misf'i 1 considerable stream which rises 
to the N.Yv ., ' npties into the Washita, and has 
received its in me from its waters being of a 
dusky red muddy colour, like those of the great 
Missouri. 

We cros.^ed the river in a ferry boat, the wa- 
ters being high, and then entered upon a close 
low bottom, densely covered with cane, laurel, 
holly, and swamp timber of every kind, which 
lasted for three miles. If was intersected by nu- 
merous bavous, over which, it being the military 
road, nine bridges had been erected, five of which 
■were inpnssable owing to the 2:reater part of the 
thick planks, which formed theirfloors, not bav- 
ins: been secured by pegs or tree-nails, so that 
they had floated away the very first inundation. 



It was evident that this had been purposely neg- 
lected by the contractors who built the bridges, 
that they might make a second job out of iL 
In this, however, they appearto have been dis- 
appointed, and the consequence has been, that 
the persons who have emigrated to Texas by 
this route have taken that part of the flooring off 
which remained, and put it in the shallowest 
part of the bayous, to enable them to cross the 
bayous in safety with their heavy waggons. 
Thus have the provident cares of the United 
States government been frustrated, travellersj 
placed in great danger, and a state of things pro- 
duced which in a short time will render this 
route impracticable ; for although this military 
road, opened at so great an expense by the gov- 
ernment, has been made the county road in the 
counties it passes through, the overseers of the 
road pay no attention to it, and far from repair- 
ing the floors of the bridges, will not even cut a 
tree out when one falls across the road. This 
low bottom lasted three miles, and on emerging 
from it, the country began to rise a little again. 
As we advanced, a new kind of soil appeared of 
a singularly waxy nature, and a dark black car- 
bonaceous colour, such as I had not seen before, 
except on the surface of the travertin, at the hot 
springs, where it abounds ; and here the soil was 
like that, accompanied with a profusion of dead 
land shells. 

Late in the afternoon we made the unpleasant 
discovery that the horse we had obtained of our 
host, Mitchell, was foundered, and that it would 
be impossible to pi-oceed on with him. This was 
rather a distressing affair, for he was a dead 
weight upon our hands, and the farther we went 
with him, the greater would be our difficulty ia 
returning him to his owner. His lameness, too, 
was evidently chronic;- so that, in fact, we had. 
no security whatever for our waggon and lug- 
gage, which was not a pleasant reflection. • After 
some deliberation, my son proposed returning 
with him, and letting me proceed on, trusting to 
be able to make some other arrangement to joia 
me again. Mitchell, too, having told him that 
he was going out on a panther hunt to a place 
frequented by several of these animals, he was 
not sorry to have an opportunity of accompany- 
ing him, as he had a strong desire to see a little 
ofthat kind of sport before we left this part of the 
country ; so after sharing each other's privations 
and being most faithful and inseparable compan- 
ions to each other for four months, we shook 
hands. My son, with his rifle on his shoulder, 
and leading the lame horse, took one way, and I 
the other. 

After riding about seven miles through a pretty 
good country, I turned off to the left to a gentle- 
man's of the name of Judge Cross, to whom I 
had a letter of introduction. He was a judge 
under the United States government, and had 
federal jurisdiction as far as the Mexian frontier. 
The house was on a knoll about half a mile fiom 
the road, and I reached it a little after darif. 

Fastening my horse to a paling which sur- 
rounded a neat-tooking wooden house, built upoa 
the double cabin plan, I entered the courtyard, 
and then the open space that separates the two 
cabins. There was a cheerful light in the room 
to the right, and, knocking at the door with a 
pilgrim's feeling, I modestly entered a neat par- 
lour, and saw a lady and two gentlemen sitting 
near a blazing fire. Pleasing as the aspect of all 
this was, that which really astonished me was a 
piece of furniture my wondering eyes could 



118 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



scarce give credit to — a real carpet. I now felt 
doubly full of respect for everybody and every- 
Ihing, and, without venturing to intrude upon the 
carpet, 1 inquired if the Judge was at home. 
Upon this a gentlemanly-looking person, about 
thirty-five years old, rose and said he was Judge 
Cross. 1 now presented my letter, which being 
read, the most unatfected kind reception was 
given to me, and in five minutes I had the satis- 
faction of knowing niy good horse Missouri was 
taken care of, and of forming one of the family 
circle. Mrs. Cross was a lady-like and agree- 
able woman, full of the most amiable attentions 
to me. The supper was excellent, and the even- 
ing was concluded by a very instructive conver- 
sation I had with the Judge on the geography of 
the country, its mineral resources, and the move- 
ments which for some time I had not been able 
to shut my eyes upon, in relation to the Mexican 
province of Texas. 

The Judge informed me that his jurisdiction 
extended I'ar to the west, near 200 miles, and 
even across Red River; for although by a treaty 
between Mexico and the United States the bound- 
.ary betwixt the two countries was settled to be 
by a north line to Red River, from where the 
S2nd degree of N. lat. intersects the Sabine Riv- 
er, yet, to the astonishment of the Mexicans, a 
pretension was setup by the American specula- 
tors that the river — which from time immemorial 
had been known as the Sabine, there never hav- 
ing been any other stream which bore that name 
— was not the Sabine, but that in fact another 
stream lying farther to the west, and which was 
!known by the name of Neches, was the true Sa- 
bine. Unfortunately for this pretension, the 
32nd degree did not intersect this Neches; but 
as the claim had been asserted, this was deemed 
of no consequence by the speculators, so the ter- 
ritory involved in the dispute fell under the juris- 
diction of Judge Cross until the dispute was ad- 
justed; for the land being valuable, American 
settlers had flocked into it, and there he was 
obliged to go to administer justice, traversing 
the wilderness alone, swimming the rivers upon 
his horse, and picking up his jurymen here and 
there, as he went along, to try his causes. I was 
glad of an opportunity of asking so intelligent a 
person, and who was so well acquainted with 
everything that was going on around him, how 
so preposterous a claim as that of carrying Amer- 
ican jurisdiction into an acknowledged part of a 
neighbouring republic could be supported; but 
I soon found that he was too prudent to say any- 
thing to a stranger about the merits of the case, 
and that he rather seemed to consider the dispute 
decided by the fact of American citizen.-; having 
taken possession of the territory. I could per- 
ceive that this gentleman, who appeared in ev- 
erything else to be a man of candour, entertain- 
ed, in common with his countrymen, the opinion 
that the United States were always in the right, 
and that all countries that differed with them 
Avere necessarily in the wrong. 

When the hour for retiring arrived, I was 
conducted to a bed-room, where I found a good 
fire, nicely plastered walls, and not a space in 
any part of them through which you could put 
your head to see what it was the hogs were 
making such a noise about. The bed looked 
nice and clean, but there was one thing I did not 
like about it, and that was a pillow too much, for 
there were two on the bolster. And there was 
somethingelse in the room 1 liked still less, in the 
form of a not very agreeable-looking person, ex- 



ceedingly out of health, who took his seat near 
the tire after the Judge had retired, and whose 
attitude created a .strong suspicion and misgiving 
in me that he had a deliberate intention of laying 
his long thin head upon one of the pillows, a 
privilege he was at least as much entitled as my- 
self to exercise, being the Judge's brother. I was 
contriving various plans how to avoid this un- 
welcome association, when he suddenly relieved 
my anxiety by bidding me good night and leav- 
ing the room. 

Of all the distressing situations in which I 
could be placed, the keenest of all would be to be 
compelled to pass the night on the same bed with 
another man, and that man a stranger, a tobacco 
eater, and perpetual expectorator. Much as I 
dreaded my worthy friend whilst these fears were 
operating upon me, I felt quite amiably disposed 
towards him as soon as he had left the room, 
and approached the bed and examined it. Cer- 
tainlv never did man feel more delighted at 
drawing the highest prize in the lottery than I 
did at beholding two fine white linen sheets, it 
being the first time I had seen such a phenome- 
non for several months. Having satisfied my- 
self that I was to have the undisputed possession 
of this luxury and performed my rapid ablutions, 
I hastened to the perfect enjoyment of all this 
comfort that the kind Mrs. Cross had provided 
for me. 

As soon as the dawn appeared — and the first 
ray of light always awakens me as if some for- 
eign body impinged upon my eyes — I rose and 
dressed myself, and, being perfectly refreshed 
with a sweet night's rest, walked out to look at 
one of the most lovely countries I had ever seen. 
Everything had become changed since the pre- 
ceding day, the sandstone and its constant con- 
comitants, the pine-trees, had been left behind, 
and I had now got to a fine, gentle, undulating 
country, usually called rolling here, which ap- 
peared to consist of a chain of prairies running 
westward and parallel with Red River for a 
great distance, until the whole country becomes 
one vast prairie, devoid of trees, except those 
which grow immediately upon the water-courses. 
Some of these prairies were mere bald spots of 
half an acre and more, whilst others contained 
several hundred acres, in every instance sur- 
rounded with a belt of timber and plants pecu- 
liar to the country. 

It seemed doubtful from the first superficial 
examination whether the trees were gradually 
gaining upon the prairies or those upon the for- 
est. The woods and the copses where Judge 
Cross had erected his neat cabin were very love- 
ly, and there were from thirty to fifty acres of 
land attached to the house without being dis- 
figured by the coarse stumps of American clear- 
ings. 1 was gratified to find also that the whole 
soil consisted of the same dark waxy substance 
I had passed the preceding day; it was as black 
as charred wood, and had a mucli more inky 
colour than the rich vegetable mould usually 
found in low grounds, although it was mild to 
the taste, and did not appear to owe its colour to 
sulphate of iron, which is always more or less 
astringent, especially in the black clayey earths 
of New .Tersey and other portions of the Atlantic 
coast. On stooping down to examine the soil in 
a small corn-field, I perceived it abounded with 
fine specimens of helices, and whilst I was gath- 
ering these I saw fragments of the large thick 
shells of Gryphsea convexa; in the course of 
half an hour' I had collected besides these some 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



119 



perfect shells of Exogyra costata, both valves 
adhering, and which had never been disturbed. 
Returning to the house, I procured a spade and 
a negro to assist me, and digging in a low part 
■where a stream had worn a channel in the soil, 
I Ibund reasons to believe that this portion of the 
country, which had the (piasl prairie character, 
■was bottomed upon immense beds of rotten lime- 
stone, probably derived from the testaceous re- 
mains of the inollusca I have named, since en- 
tire shells in a soft state are found embedded in 
the limestone. These mollusca are the charac- 
teristic fossils of the subcrelaceous* deposits of 
Monmouth in New Jersey, which are most prob- 
ably contemporaneous with these in the southern 
parts of Arkansas. 

At breakfast, having turned the conversation 
■upon the fossils which were in such abundance 
here, the Judge informed me that his corn-field 
whence I had taken the shells was part of a nat- 
ural prairie, one of an immense number that ex- 
tended to the west; and that he believed, from 
the personal observations he had made, that the 
black land of which all these prairies consisted, 
and which in a rainy time was so waxy that it 
"was difficult to walk or stir in it, was about five 
miles in breadth, and extended an immense dis- 
tance. This exceedingly increased my desire to 
see more of this southern country in company 
■w'ith the Judge; so after breakfast he very obli- 
gingly mounted his horse, and we made an agree- 
able excursion in the neighbourhood, calling for 
a short time at the little insignificant wooden vil- 
lage of Washington, where the government land- 
sales were holding. 

I was not desirous of remaining long at this 
place. General Houston was here, leading a 
mysterious sort of life, shut up in a small tavern, 
.seeing nobody by day and sitting up all night. 
The world gave him credit for passing these his 
■waking hours in the study of trente el quarante 
and sept a lever ; but I had been in communica- 
tion with too many persons of late, and had seen 
too much passing before my eyes, to be ignorant 
that this little place was the rendezvous where a 
much deeper game than faro or rouge-et-noir 
■was playing. There were many persons at this 
lime in the village frotn the States lying adjacent 
to the Mississippi, under the pretence of pur- 
chasing government lands, but whose real ob- 
ject was to encourage the settlers in Texas to 
throw off their allegiance to the Mexican gov- 
ernment. Many of these individuals were per- 
sonally acquainted with me; they knew I was 
not 'with them, and would naturally conclude I 
was against them. Having nothing whatever in 
common with their plans, and no inclination to 
forward or oppose them, I perceived that the 
longer I staid the more they would find reason 
to suppose I was a spy upon their actions, and as 
soon as the Judge had spoken to a few of his 
friends we came away. 

On our way back, in crossing the zone of black 
land, we invariably found grypheous valves, 

* The term " subcrelaceous" is here used in veferrnce 
to the order of the geological strata in England, chalk, in 
place, not having yet been seen in America. But as the 
Gryph!ea couvcxa and Exogyra costata are identically the 
same in Arkansas as those found in the New Jersey depos- 
its, and as these confOTm as to succession to the order of 
doposit of the Engli-sh lieds, and contain numerous mollus- 
cous and vprlelirated fossils bearing undoubted generic re- 
lations to the fossi s of the subcrelaceous beds in England, 
I conceive myself justified in applying tliistenn as anequiv- 
iilent, especially as I am of o|)inion that there is nut a stra- 
tum of any kind in North America which does not more or 
less add to the proofs of a co-e.visteat order of succession. 



sometimes profusely scattered around with their 
opcrcula separated from them, and at other times 
wiih their valves closed and a small quantity of 
calcareous matter lying upon the place of the 
muscular attachment, which the Judge said his 
negroes called " petrified oysters." Sometimes, 
in low situations, ihe black earth gave place to 
a deep red marie of great fertility, but in this 
marie I never perceived any shells, and upon 
considering the situations in which it lay, I saw 
that it must have been deposited there by fresh 
water that had passed over these low places pos- 
terior to the abandonment by the sea of the sub- 
cretaceous beds. The shells invariably seemed 
to be most perfect and abundant on the highest 
part of the knolls on the prairie land, probably 
from the land draining sooner there and the 
shells being consequently kept drier. The fer- 
tility of the soils in this part of the country ren- 
ders them eminently fitted for cotton, which, as 
I had many opportunities of observing, succeeds 
extremely well: the staple is fine, and the pro- 
duce in good seasons reaches from 1500 to 2000 
lbs. of cotton in the seed to the acre. Wheal 
has not yet been fairly tried, but the few experi- 
mental essays which have been made are en- 
couraging. Indian corn yields from 40 to CO 
bushels to the acre. I was told, however, that 
if these plants were cultivated where the black 
earth had been very much washed from the sub- 
jacent limestone, \\\ey pined in dry seasons, the 
leaves drying up and the stalks gradually dying. 
In moderately wet seasons this is not the case, 
the maize then does very well, and cotton does 
not require so much moisture. 

Take it altogether, this is a very lovely and 
desirable country; picturesque prairies, charm- 
ing woods, and lively streams abound every- 
where. Amongst other plants I remarked the 
Crab-Apple {Mahis coronaria) and the Bois d'Arc 
{Madura auranUaca) : the former is in prodigious 
abundance, a.nd attains an orchard-like growth, 
some of the trees being twenty feet high and ten 
inches in diameter, and in the seasons of blos- 
soms are said to scent the whole country around. 
The Bois d'Arc, or bow-wood, with its orange- 
like fruit and leaf, also flourishes here, but is 
more rare; its w-ood is of a beautiful yellow col- 
our, something resembling the sumac, and of it 
the Indians make their best bows, from which it 
has its trivial name. 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

Probable origin of Prairies — Land most attractive when to 
be obtained without paying for — Mr. Prior— Great abuse 
of the Government Land Sales— An Oasis in the Wilder- 
ness—Contrast between the educated and uneducated 
Classes— Two patriotic Members of the Sovereign People. 

In regard to the origin of prairies, an opinion 
has been expressed by Mr. Jefferson and others, 
that all prairies have been produced by the In- 
dian practice of firing the herbage annually, and 
thus eventually destroying the grown timber as 
well as inferior plants. This cause would cer- 
tainly seem to be a sufficient one in those districts 
upon which no other could apparently operate; 
but the geological phenomena ol'this part of the 
country^sugsest, perhaps, a more probable rea- 
son why siich extensive areas of country should 
be without trees. The surface presents broken- 
down marine shelly matter, accumulated iniu 
local beds and extensive hill deposits, after the 
manner in which we know the oyster and some 



1^0 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



other testaceous families accumulate their shells 
in recent times; and tKe general irregularity of 
the surface is not dissimilar to that which is 
presented by soundings made upon many marine 
coasts. These accumulations are more or less 
covered with a vegeto-animaJ deposit, probably 
derived from fuel, algse, molluscse, and other 
vet'etable and animal products of the ocean, that 
by the constantly acting power of the elements 
has been partially removed, and carried by rains 
towards the lowlands and streams. Hence this 
covering, which originally had been equally de- 
posited, is now diminished in some places and 
thickened in others. 

These characteristics of the prairie country, 
as far as this particular zone of prairies is con- 
cerned, are common to a vast extent of country. 
Eastwards from hence, the zone extends from 33° 
40' to 32° 30' N. lat., in the State of Alabama, 
where wells have been dug 500 feet deep through 
this rotten limestone into" slate with quartzose 
veins; and throughout this extended line, — all of 
■which I have personally examined, — the charac- 
teristic shells of this subcretaceous Ibrmation 
have been found. In my cabinet I possess gry- 
phEea, exogyra, and other fossils from localities 
far up the False Washita, — one of the most im- 
portant forks of Red River, — from the Kiamesha, 
200 miles farther east ; from the state of Missis- 
sippi, from the Prairie Bluffs in the state of Ala- 
bama, and from the state of New Jersey; ail of 
them identical with those found in this part of 
Arkansas. We are warranted, therefore, in con- 
sidering this zone of prairies as part of an ancient 
floor of the ocean, and may reasonably expect, 
when further investigations shall have been 
made, to trace the littoral bounds of the North 
American sea during the subcretaceous and ter- 
tiary periods, parts of which are now clearly 
marked by all the unequivocal circumstances 
which I have described. 

When the ocean abandoned these areas, they 
were of course without plants. Now, by what- 
ever method plants begin first to take possession 
of the soil, whether by spontaneous growth or by 
the agency of seeds transported thither, they are, 
where the vegetable matter is thin and the sea- 
son unfavourable, liable to perish; and even 
where they are not thus exposed it is to be re- 
membered that these prairies were overrun, as 
the more distant western prairies still are, with 
countless herds of roaming buffaloes, which, by 
their periodical occupation of the country, would 
assist in exterminating all young plants and 
plants of a vigorless constitution. These may 
be enumerated amongst the efficient causes of a 
prairie or meadow state of extensive tracts of 
country, a view of the subject which is some- 
what strengthened by the admitted fact of plants 
in modern times encroaching on the prairies; 
for ii is observed, that they now begin to flourish 
\\here vegetable matter has accumulated, being 
secured from the devastating teeth and hooffs of 
the buffalo, all of which haveleft this part of the 
country, for where man settles that animal never 
leinahis long. 

The singular contrast tod betwixt so many prai- 
rie tracts without plants, and those dense and in- 
terminable forests which cover so large a portion 
of the continent of North America, 1*^ to be ac- 

Miiited for by geological causes. With the e.x- 
■ ■ption of the tertiary and subcretaceous areas 
I I'lerred to. the other mineral formations in North 
America appear not to rise higher in the geolo- 
gical column than the beds of the carboniferous 



series, the entire oolitic series being deficient; 
and when we consider the immense period of 
time that must have intervened betwixt the de- 
posit of the coal series and the subcretaceous 
beds, we find no difficulty in supposing that when 
the ocean retired from these last and tliey became 
terra firma, the dry land which had preceded 
them was in the forest state. Unless, therefore, 
we call to our aid spontaneous growth, we have 
only to choose betwixt prairies destined to remain 
for ever without plants, or prairies slowly filling 
up with plants derived from the seeds of those 
forests which clothed the more ancient forma- 
tions. The borders of the prairies would be 
planted first, and thus we can conceive of every 
new generation of plants giving some of its seeds 
— their structure being eminently fitted for so 
great a purpose — to the winds and the waters, 
and gradually extending the forests ; as the pres- 
ent members of the human family who now pos- 
sess the land send forth their generations to ad- 
vance upon and settle the country for the uses 
of posterity. 

This seems a more natural and just method 
of accounting for the immense prairies of the 
west, and the pampas of the southern portion of 
the American continent, than conjectural opin- 
ions founded on a convenient method adopted by 
the Indians to secure their game ; a method which 
they have successfully practised at all times, to 
burn the cane and high grass in the upland 
forests, and which has somev/hat thinned but 
has not destroyed them, as we see from the state 
of the more open woods in Virginia, Tennessee, 
Kentucky, Indiana, Missouri, and Arkansas ; 
where, now that the Indians have abandoned tlie 
country, the undergrowth is rapidly occupying 
the ground again. It therefore appears to me 
that those prairies, instead of having been de- 
nuded by fire, have never, since the ocean aban- 
doned them, been covered by any vegetables of 
greater importance than the gramina. 

Fertile and beautiful as the country is where 
Judge Cross resides, it is singular, that although 
it is one of the most salubrious parts of Arkan- 
sas, and enjoys such a temperate climate, j'et 
American citizens from great distances are con- 
stantly traversing it, amidst all sorts of priva- 
tions and difficulties, to seek a precarious exist- 
ence in the unknown lands of Texas. Hundreds 
of thousands of acres of the very first quality, 
and which they could obtain at the insignificant 
price established by law of a dollar and a quarter 
an acre, are passed by as if they did not deserve 
their attention. Put in motion by the insidious 
arts of the unprincipled adventurers who have 
for a long period contemplated this great robbery 
of the Mexican government, and their cupidity 
awakened by the vision of magnificent forms to 
be obtained for nothing, they hasten on to a country 
possessing fewer aavantages, little suspecting 
that they are but tools employed by their tempt- 
ers to defend the plunder these have in contem- 
plation. I never meet with waggons filled with 
these Texas emigrants, without looking upon the 
men as victims and the women and children as 
widows and orphans. 

Having taken leave of the respectable family 
by whom I had been so agreeably entertained, I 
pursued my road to Red River, and after pro- 
ceeding three miles came upon a barren sand 
whichlasted all the way to the village of Wash- 
ington, a miserable affair, built on a dry scorch- 
ing sand-hill, and which has no resource or at- 
traction whatever. On my previous visit here 



TRAVELS IN AINIERICA. 



I had been made acquainted with a Mr. Prior, a 
VirgiJiian, who had moved into the neighbourhood 
of Ued River aljout three years before, and had 
established a cotton plantation in Texas ; but as 
it was very unhealthy in the autumn on account 
of malaria, he had built a cabin on the uplands 
in Arkansas, as a place of refuge for his family. 
I had the good fortune to meet Mr. Prior again 
whilst my horse was feeding, and finding that I 
Avas going in the direction of his cabin, he said 
that, as lie was returning home, he should be 
happy to accompany me, and give me lodgings 
for the night. Gladly accepting this offer, we 
left the village together, and I soon discovered 
that my companion was a gentlemanly and in- 
telligent person, and ivide awake to everything 
that was passing around him. During our ride, 
that absorbing topic in this part of the world, the 
proceedings of the land speculators, was of course 
adverted to. 

The passion for speculation in almost every 
part of this country is singularly absorbing, but 
is intelligible enough. As there is no ranlc in 
the United States except ofiicial rank, all those 
who are excluded from it are theoretically upon 
an equality; but this is a very different thing 
from f radical equality, which seems to be be- 
yond the powers of demonstration. The consti- 
tution of a country may require all men to be 
equally stupid, may forbid any man to be of a 
more lofty nature than the rest, and may declare 
that the top and the bottom are one and the same 
thing: all these dogmas may be proclaimed on 
the 4th of July from Dan to Beersheba, but will 
not deter men an instant from endeavouring to 
surpass each other in the possession of worldly 
advantages of every kind. Whilst these theories 
are brought forward to flatter the people, sub- 
stantial inequalitij is what every man in Amer- 
ica is engaged in establishing, and this by the 
agency of the almighty dollar, a superabundance 
of which being a substitute for other virtues, 
stands in the place of all distinction. Wealth, 
therefore, since it implies virtue of every imagin- 
able kind, must be had at any cost; and good 
faith and fair dealing, both public and private, 
are not to be permitted to stand too inconveni- 
ently in theway of its acquisition. In America, 
where so many have no objection to obtain it at 
this price, there certainly can be no avenue to 
its possession so tempting as speculating in the 
public lands; for without denying that the 
scheme under which they are sold in detail to 
the public is simple, and ostensibly fair for bonii 
fide purchasers, yet nothing can be more admi- 
rably contrived to facilitate the proceedings of 
unprincipled speculators. 

The country which is to be sold is surveyed 
into sections, land-offices are established, and a 
period is appointed by the highest authority in 
the country when a public sale is to be held, and 
the sections or their sub-divisions* to be struck 
off to the highest bidder: any of the sections, 
however, which remain unsold after the sale for 
■want of bidders, being free to be entered at the 
minimum price established by law, of one dollar 
and a quarter. Nothing can appear more fair, 
more moderate, and more encouraging to the in- 
creasing population of the country than the 
scheme of this law, which was enacted by the 
Congress, with the sanction of many honourable 
andunsuspectingindividuals. But'whatis often 
the practice under it 1 The future settler leaves 



A section is one square mile, or 640 acres. 



121 

hisfomily, proceeds perhaps one thousand miles, 
gets a description of the sections at ihe land- 
ollice of the district, finds a section that suits 
him, builds a cabin upon it, clears a field, plants 
corn for the coming winter, and returns to con- 
duct his family to his future home ; there to await 
— with the hard dollars prescribed by law for 
payment of the land — the time to be appointed 
(or the public sale, when he hopes to obtain a 
Government title for his land, at a price not ex- 
ceeding one dollar and a quarter per acre. In 
the mean time active speculators — who find it 
convenient to be political partisans — combine 
with larger views, and form plans which often 
materially interfere with the industrious and un- 
suspecting settler. 

First contriving by a little political manage- 
ment to place one of their number as principal 
person in the land-ofiice of the district to be oper- 
ated in, ihey next make themselves well acquaint- 
ed with the nature of the soil, and other natural 
advantages appertaining to each of the most 
valuable sections of land. If one of them lies 
near a public road, if it has a navigable stream 
near it, if it is the probable site of a I'uture court- 
house, and is of the first class for fertility, they 
send an agent to the settler who is upon it, to tell 
him that they mean to bid against him at the sale^ 
and to get a government title to the land at any 
price whatever. The dismayed settler consults 
his family, he knows what they are capable of 
doing, and that if even the section were knocked 
down to him at a speculating price, he could not 
obtain the money to pay for it. He has only to 
choose then between abandoning the land where 
he has expended so much labour, and to which 
he and his family have become attached, or to 
make a ruinous compromise. This is sometimes 
effected by his consenting to let the speculators 
purchase the land at the sale, and to take a title 
from them instead of the government. In many- 
cases the poor settlers have agreed to pay ten 
dollars an acre to these rapacious and unfeeling 
wretches, delivering to them the ready money- 
they had prepared to pay to the government, and 
executing a mortgage to them for the remainder. 
Thus is the once cheerful settler weighed down 
to the earth with a heavy debt that presses upon 
him for the remainder of his life, and converted 
into the slave of a set of unprincipled harpies 
who make enormous profits by their nefarious 
transactions, without advancing any capital 
whatever. 

But this is not the most atrocious thing that 
takes place. If the settler refuses to compro- 
mise, the parties attend the sale ; the speculators 
constantly overbid the settler, even if thev have 
to bid four times more than the value of the land, 
and of course it is struck down to them, and the 
settler has lost his home. Now comes the oper- 
ation of a regulation of these land-offices, which 
is of this nature: if the price at which a section, 
or a half or a quarter section of land has been 
knocked down to any one, is not all paid within 
a certain number of hours, the fact is to be sta- 
ted at the opening of the sale the next morning, 
and the. sale declared void. The next morning, 
the clerk of the land-oflrce cominences by read- 
ing the numbers of the sections the price for 
which has not been paid, and declares the sales 
of each of them void. The settler, overjoyed to 
find his own serlion is amongst the number, 
goes to the clerk as soon as he is uA \ the register 
is open, and directs his name to be put down as 
the purchaser at the minimum price of one dol- 



122 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



lar and a quarter an acre. The clerk opens the 
register and with affected surprise intbrms the 
applicant that another person has just before en- 
tered his name for that section. The deluded 
and unfortunate man now sees that there is no 
jremedy ; that ihe clerk is a confederate of these 
speculators, and that the whole has been arran- 
..ged in concert with them to defraud him and 
give them — after the pretended competition at 
the public sale — a government title at the mini- 
anum price. These vile transactions have been 
repealed too often, and in some instances the 
names of individuals have been coupled with 
them that ought to have been free from every 
taint ol suspicion : so true it is that where money 
is the principal avenue to distinction in a coun- 
try, every honest principle is too often trampled 
upon to obtain it. :,,. 

Mr. Prior and myself continued on this sandy 
j)ine land lor some miles, and then entered upon 
a dead level of fine black land, underlaid by rot- 
ten testaceous matter. It continued for a great 
distance entirely on the same level, so that the 
water laid upon it as if it were a moss, and made 
it very unpleasant travelling, being black and ex- 
ceedingly muddy and plastic : this is so much 
the case, that in consequence of the pigs coming 
home with loads of black matter behind them, it 
is now the custom to cut off their tails. The 
land at length began to rise, and we got upon a 
siliceo-calcareous ridge that was a sort of water- 
shed, sending off streams to the north and south. 
Here, from the great profusion of those plants 
Avhich only grow on the most fertile soils, and 
■which are an indication of good cotton land, I 
perceived that we were entering into a produc- 
tive district. Notwithstanding the abundance 
of trees, we, however, as usual, saw very few 
birds except the crow, a cosmopolite that is 
found everywhere, even in the deepest solitudes 
of Arkansas; but his presence always gives me 
pleasure, for the sound of his voice diminishes 
time and distance, strikes upon the chords of 
early youth, and carries me back to those care- 
less days when the crow was amongst the most 
familiar of my acquaintances. 

As we advanced, lofty pines mixed with oaks 
covered the ridge, which presented an excellent 
surface for agricultural purposes. Taking a 
short cut, Mr. Prior led the way, and we thread- 
ed the mazes of the pines that now assumed an 
astonishing hteight and diameter, such as I had 
never before seen out of Canada. We seemed 
to be buried in an interminable forest; night had 
fallen, and I began to think we must necessarily 
have a still fatiguing ride to perform ere we got 
out of the woods to this cabin we were in search 
of; when turning to the left we suddenly came 
upon it, and I confess I have seldom been more 
pleasingly surprised. In the midst of a forest of 
pine trees, few of them less than three feet in di- 
ameter, a clearing of a few acres had been effect- 
ed, an admirable fence put round it, and the 
whole divided into regular compartments. In 
one of these, consisting perhaps of a couple of 
acres, were several detached buildings made of 
hewn logs, but finished in a very neat manner, 
except those which had been hastily thrown up 
for the use of the negroes. On entering this pre- 
cinct, at a distance of perhaps a hundred yards 
from the buildings, 1 hardly knew how to repress 
my admiration. I had been forming to myself 
an idea of a humble cabin hastily got together in 
the woods, when a villa of. very neat proportions 
appeared before me, with a quadrangle bordered 



with plants here and there, regularly laid out into 
broad walks ; whilst the squares between the 
walks, so far from having been ploughed or dug 
up, were still filled with the huge stumps of the 
pines that had grown there only eighteen months 
before, when Mr. Prior first commenced to cut 
the pine trees down. Another compartment had 
been turned into an excellent vegetable garden, 
where all sorts of good things were growing, and 
here the stumps had been eradicated. This was 
truly an oasis in the desert, and I saw at once 
that Mr. and Mrs. Prior had been accustomed 
to the refined comforts of life, and had the sense 
to create them wherever they went. That no- 
thing might be wanting to complete the evidence 
my eyes were collecting of this, just as we reach- 
ed the house I distinctly heard the tones of a pi- 
ano — a piano in the wilderness, within ten miles 
of a Mexican province! 

When so many pleasing things come unex- 
pectedly upon us, the imagination easily enters 
upon the task of investing them with attractions 
yet unseen ; and as I had found order, neatness, 
and music, in a forest, where a short time before 
I had, at the best, anticipated a rude cabin to 
shelter me during the night, I came at once to 
the comfortable conclusion that such things as a 
good supper and a bed might also be found here, 
nor was I disappointed. Mrs. Prior received 
me very politely, and there was no want of the 
most hospitable attentions during my stay. Mr. 
Prior had resided a short time on his cotton 
plantation, south of Red River, but finding it in- 
salubrious, and having an only daughter,"a nice 
little girl of ten years old, he sought a healthy 
situation in the hills at a convenient distance, 
and selecting a spot where there was an ample 
spring of fine pellucid water, he commenced his 
improvements, carrying them on with great spirit 
and taste. Without the fence which enclosed 
his buildings, were huge piles of logs from the 
pine trees which had been cut down, and which 
had been rolled into large heaps to dry before 
they could be burnt up. It would have broken 
the heart of a regular timber-merchant to see 
hundreds upon hundreds of the finest logs— with- 
out a single knot in them — deliberately put on 
one side to be converted into smoke and ashes; 
a proceeding that justifies the application of the 
old saw, that -'What is one man's food is an- 
other man's poison," lor there being no saw mills 
at present in the country to work up these beau- 
tiful trees, they are glad to resort to the least in- 
commodious way of getting rid of them. 

The example of this gentleman, in providing 
for the health and comfort of his family, is about 
to be followed, I understand, by other planters: 
they talk already of building a church, and frora 
what I hear, they have a cheerful prospect be- 
fore them of establishing a social and moral col- 
ony of educated people in this part of Arkansas. 
How great a contrast is shown in the results 
produced by settlers of the educated and unedu- 
cated classes! The individuals of this last, not- 
withstanding the "sovereign" privileges with 
which they are dignified, seem, wherever I have 
had an opportunity of observing them, to have 
but one object in view, which is the immediate 
gratification of animal wants. Order, cleanli- 
ness, propriety, seem never to be thought of; 
they build a rude cabin, they remain in it till it 
rots, they patch it up as long as they can, and 
only when it has begun to tumble down, build 
another as rude as the first. They live twenty 
or thirtv years in the same place without dis- 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



123 



covering that they have a single moral want. 
Eeligion is never spolcen of, and the Sabbath 
day to them is nothing but a day when it is a 
custom lor the husband to shave himself, and 
the wife to go out a visiting. If an individual 
comes amongst them with higher views, they do 
not aspire to'"his standard but seek to drag him 
down to their level, as being exactly the situa- 
tion they would choose if they were in his place, 
i'or nothing seems to appear more natural lo de- 
mocracy than dirt. An anecdote was once re- 
lated to me which illustrates this well. 

One of the sovereign people, who was return- 
ing home from a political meeting in New York, 
where he had been amazingly sublimated vvith 
magnificent speeches about the exceeding virtu- 
ous infallibility of the class he belonged to, and 
uiih just as much whiskey as had materially 
deranged his centre of gravity, went along, with 
imcertain steps, and thinking aloud, when sud- 
denly the street seemed to be so unaccountably 
steep as to render it necessary to lift his legs as 
much as if he was getting up stairs. A little 
giddiness next seizecf him as if he had been on 
the deck of a vessel in the Bay of Biscay, and 
opening his eyes wide, he saw a large brick 
house coming /!(// split at him round the corner; 
out of the way of this he had but just happily 
got, when the ground flew up, struck him in the 
jforehead, ani knocked him into the gutter. Find- 
ing it a natural and easy position, he remained 
contentedly there until the inclination to get to a 
drier place took him, when perceiving the ap- 
proach of another member of the republican roy- 
al famil}', pretty much in the same happy state 
as he had been in, he said, "Won't— you — be — 
so — 'bliging — as — lend — me a — hand — out — of— 
the gutter 1" "That's— jist — o?ipossible," cour- 
teously replied the new comer, " but — if you — 
like — I'll come — and — lie— down— by you." 

The degraded state of things which prevails 
amongst the lower classes cannot improve of it- 
.self, but must grow worse from generation to 
generation, without the aid of living moral ex- 
amples; the efforts, therefore, which Mr. Prior 
and his friends are making to establish a ration- 
al mode of existence in this part of the country, 
deserve every encouragement and commenda- 
tion. 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 

Mr. Williams ; his adventures— Blunder of the Mexican 
Government — Reach Red River— Cross into the Mexican 
Province of Texas— Lost Prairie, a beautiful tract of land 
' — Surprising Crop of Cotton in a field of 300 acres — The 
Abolition of Slavery a hopeless case — The future — Wild 
Musoadel Grape. 

After breakfast, having made my acknowl- 
edgments for so much kindness, I took leave, and 
accompained by a Mr. Williams, who was a vis- 
itor there, pursued my way to Red River, distant 
only ten miles, following the southern slope of 
the pine hills, which show a great many beds of 
ferruginous sandstone. At the foot of these hills 
the rich and broad bottom land of Red River 
commences, which is considered to be of the 
very first class of cotton lands in this part of 
North America. A portion of it had just been 
sold at the public land-sale at Washington, and 
some of the sections had brought as high a price 
as ten, and even thirteen dollars an acre. The 
bottom is about a mile in width on the north side 
of the river, and is densely covered with lowland 
timber, such as cotton wooi (^Populus monilifera), 



the huge branches of which are as while a.': snow, 
other trees of the sycamore kind, deciduous cy- 
press, and immense canes 20 to 30 feet high. 

I found my companion, Mr. Williams, an in- 
teresting person. He had passed a very adven- 
turous life, was a short thin man, looking much 
older than he was, from the effects of exposure 
and various hardships, and as he told me, from 
the great quantity of calomel he had been obliged 
to take when attacked by fever and ague. He 
was a native of Connecticut, and had entered 
into the Mexican service previous to the eleva- 
tion of Iturbide. Attaching himself to an Ameri- 
can named Long, a partisan in that service, with 
the rank of Colonel or General, and who was as- 
sassinated in the streets of Mexico by daylight, 
on account, as it was thought, of his too zealous 
Republicanism — he had been imprisoned with 
other Americans, obnoxious to Iturbide, and con- 
demned to be shot. His life, however, was spa- 
red, and having survived many turbulent adven- 
tures, he had attached himself to another of his 
countrymen, a Colonel Milam, who, for services 
to the Mexican Government, had received a 
grant of eleven leagues of land on Red River, 
and on this grant Mr. Williams had resided 
many years alone, in a small cabin, providing 
everything for himself, and very seldom even 
seeing his friend Colonel Milam, whose public 
duties and private affairs seldom permitted him 
to visit his grant on Red River. It is probable, 
too, that the Mexican Government kept a jealous 
eye upon his movements, this grant being com- 
prehended in the territorial dispute which has 
been before mentioned, for it is well known to 
them that persons occupying land on the frontier 
consider themselves in the United States or in 
Texas, just as it suits their interests. They are 
Mexicans until they get a title from the Mexican 
Government, but as the Americans are the only 
settlers who give an intrinsic value to the land 
by their labour, it becomes the interest of every 
proprietor to encourage the annexation of the 
country to the United States, a measure, any se- 
rious attempt to consummate which, will be a se- 
vere trial to the Federal Union. Nor can the 
Mexicans be blind to the movement that is now 
going on in relation to the province of Texas, or 
fail to have their doubts about the fidelity of in- 
dividuals situated as Colonel Milam is. Indeed 
all the persons who have possessions on the dis- 
puted line, being native-born citizens of the Uni- 
ted States, may be considered as pioneers of the 
advancing Anglo-American population, and to 
be only waiting for favourable opportunities to 
indulge in their irresistible propensity to spread 
themselves over conterminous territories, with 
or without any title to them. 

In this quarter no obstacle whatever appears 
to present itself to their advance. The indiscreet 
legislation of Mexico, by which American citi- 
zens have been permitted to settle in Texas, upon 
condition of conforming to its laws, of adopting 
the Roman Catholic religion, and abolishing 
slavery, has already put the country into their 
possession; the conditions will none of them be 
observed, and when it is too late, Mexico will 
find that it would have been easier to have kept 
them out, than it will be to turn them out. Bu- 
as Mexico is essentially a revolutionary govern- 
ment, and as no party at the capital will probabl)' 
for a long lime be strong enough to do more than 
attend to its own interests, ii is almost self-evi- 
dent that if ever she has the inclination, she will 
never have the power to govern — at a distance 



124 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



of 1800 miles — a race of active and intrepid men, 
wlio are hostile to her laws, religion, and manners. 
It would seem, therefore, that, Mexico, in rela- 
tion to the settlement of Texas, has made an ir- 
retrievable false step. 

On reaching the banks of Red River, although 
I was very much delighted at having successfully 
penetrated to this extreme frontier of the broad 
territory of the United States, yet I could not but 
perceive that nothing could be less beautiful or 
picturesque than the river and its shores. The 
stream was here about 200 yards wide, sluggish, 
muddy, and chocolate coloured ; deriving its col- 
our from the deep red earth it has in ancient 
times deposited, and through which it now flows ; 
and exhibiting on its banks an impenetrable wil- 
derness of briars, plants of various kinds, and 
lofty canes of froin 20 to 30 feet high. The next 
thing was to cross the river at what is called 
Dooley's Ferry, to the Texas side, where, on ac- 
count of the present low stage of the water, there 
was an extensive beach of 200 yards or more. 
As soon as the ferrj'boat touched the Mexican 
shore, I hastened to lead my horse over the beach 
as rapidly as I could, for the ferryman told me 
that it was very dangerous, would scarcely bear 
the weight of a horse, and might suck him in, if 
I loitered. I soon saw this was good advice, for 
the bog shook in a treacherous manner, and Mis- 
souri, who did not appear to like this unusual 
surface, aiding with great agility, we soon reach- 
ed the hard land, and found ourselves in what 
the ferryman called " Spain." 

We were now upon an exceedingly fertile bot- 
tom between three and four miles wide, densely 
full of plants and trees, amongst which I recog- 
nised for the first time the palmetto, with its 
graceful fanlike shape. Having got through it, 
we came upon drier and blacker land, and then 
to a locality called Lost Prairie, which is a tract 
of about 2000 acres of incredible beauty and fer- 
tility, bearing extraordinary crops of cotton, and 
gracefully surrounded by picturesque woods. I 
had never seen the cotton plant growing in 
perfection before, for in the cotton districts I had 
already passed through, the plant was a low 
dwarfed bush not exceeding two feet high : but 
here the whole country was filled with stately and 
umbrageous bushes live feet high, covered with 
innumerable pods resembling large white roses. 
Having found out where the plantation of a Dr. 
Jones was, to whom I had a letter of introduc- 
tion, I rode there, and learned that he was from 
home, but his family offering to receive me, 1 
determined to remain at their house for the night, 
that I might have an opportunity of looking at 
the immediate neighbourhood. It was a charm- 
ing sunny day, the thermometer (Dec. 11) stood 
at 74'^ out of doors, and not a cloud in the 
sky. 

It had occurred to me, before I crossed Red 
River, that it would be prudent not to prolong 
my stay in Texas at this time. All the persons 
whom I had any intercourse with, appeared to 
be of one opinion as to the expediency and pro- 
priety of occupying and detaching this province 
from the Mexican government, , and it was easy 
to see that they thought the moment for action 
was drawing nigh. Upon several occasions, 
when this important subject was earnestly dis- 
cussed in my presence, I had remained silent ; 
and as this was unusual in a quarter where all 
men had some plan or other to ofl'er to acceler- 
ate their design, I was by many regarded as a 
spy upon them. If I had waited here until my 



son joined me, and then advanced larthcr inta 
the country, some outbreak might take place, 
and we might become involved in its consequen- 
ces, or have found it difficult to return. I deter- 
mined, therefore, as the most prudent course, to 
defer my examination of the interior of the prov- 
ince until I could do it with the permission of 
the Mexican authorities, or until the country 
had become quiet enough to admit of my moving 
about without observation. In the mean time' 
there was something to see here, and I .set about 
making the best use I could of the time I intend- 
ed to stay. 

It is impossible to exaggerate the extraordina- 
ry fertility of the soil of Lost Prairie. I had an 
opportunity of examining the nature of the de- 
posit in a well just dug to the depth of thirty feet 
from the surface ; the first three feet went through 
a rich black vegetable mould, and the remain- 
ing twenty-seven through a reddish-coloured 
argillaceo-calcareous earth, so that it would 
seem impossible to exhaust a soil of this kind. 
In favourable seasons they gather from 1500 to 
2500 lbs. of cotton in the seed to the acre, which 
when the seed is taken out by the cotton gin, 
leaves from twenty-five to thirty per cent, in 
weight of marketable raw cotton. It is consid- 
ered a fair crop if it produces one bale of 450 lbs. 
of such cotton to the acre, and where for every 
working negro on the plantation six or eight 
bales can be turned out. I observed that it was 
not the same species of plant I had seen growing^ 
in Tennessee, and was told that it was the Mex- 
ican white-seeded cotton, which was preferred in 
this part of the country, because it yields more 
to the acre and is much easier gathered. Some 
of the plants were near six feet high, and sent 
forth branches in great profusion, covered with 
large white bolls resembling the Guelder Rose 
when in full perfection. I counted 300 bolls on 
one stem, but Dr. Jones's overseer told me that 
he had counted as many as 360 on one stem this 
.season. The field these plants were in contain- 
ed 300 acres, and it was so dazzling white to 
look upon as to create rather a painful sensation 
in the eyes. 

Although the climate in this latitude, 33° 40',. 
is well fitted for the cotton plant, yet I am in- 
formed that farther to the south, in 31° 30', it 
flourishes still more ; for when the first set of 
blossoms of the cotton plant is going to seed, 
the plant, in congenial climes, puts out "new 
buds," which also come to maturity ; and where 
the climate is so propitious as to give the plant 
all the advantages of a free growth, unchecked 
by early or late frosts, it can be gathered three 
times. 

Notwithstanding it was so late in the year, 
only one half of this field was gathered, and the 
proprietor was now on a journey to purchase an 
additional gang of slaves, intending to plant 400 
acres the next season. 

However lightly these people may hold \.h& 
Mexicans, whose superiors they undoubtedly 
are in industry and enterprise, yet the Mexicans 
stand at a proud moral distance from them in 
regard to slavery, which is abolished in their 
republic. What can be more abominable than 
the hypocritical cant with which these people 
intrude into a country which does not belong to 
them 1 To believe them, they have no motive 
but to establish "free institutions, civil and reli-. 
gious." Yet, in defiance of human freedom,, 
just laws, and true religion, they proceed to con- 
summate their real purpose, which is tO' people- 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



125 



the country with slaves in order to cover it with 
cotton crops. The poor slaves I saw here did 
not appear to me to siand any higiier in the scale 
of animal existence than ihe liorse ; the hor>e 
does his daily task, eats his changeless proven- 
der, and at night is driven to his stable to be 
shut in, until he is again drawn forth at the ear- 
liest dawn to go through the same unpitied rou- 
tine until he dies. This is the history of the 
slave in Texas, differing in nothing from that 
of the horse, except that instead of piaize and 
straw he is supplied with a little .salt pork to his 
maize, day after day, without any change, until 
death relieves him I'rom his wearisome exist- 
ence. The occupation of Texas by the Ameri- 
cans, where there are so many millions of acres 
of the most lertile cotton lands, will convert the 
old slave-holding part of the United States into 
a disgusting nursery for young slaves, because 
the black crop will produce more money to the 
proprietors than any other crop they can culti- 
vate. 

For this reason the insufficiency of the Mexi- 
can Government for the protection of their own 
territory appears to me to be one of the greatest 
misfortunes that could have happened to the hu- 
man family in our times, when the minds of men, 
especially in North America, were gradually in- 
clining to the universal abolition of slavery. In 
the States of Maryland and Virginia slavery 
was no longer a pro'fitable state of things: tobac- 
co had exhausted the best soils, and the planta- 
tions, with very few exceptions, no longer main- 
tained even the slaves. As the slaves became 
gradually a burden to their masters, these last 
would have got into a calmer slate of mind in 
regard to slavery, and been more disposed to 
concur in some humane legislation for its aboli- 
tion, by declaring all black children to be free 
who were born alter a prospective period ; so that 
the change from slavery to freedom being grad- 
ual would scarcely have been felt, and, as had 
before occurred in the State of New York by the 
enactment of a statute which conferred immor- 
tal honour upon the people of that State, the day 
of universal emancipation would have arrived 
undreaded and almost unperceived. 

The examples of two such States as Virginia 
and Maryland, both of which, and especially the 
first, have produced such eminent men, would 
have had great weight with the other slave-hold- 
ing States, and perhaps have led the way to an 
universal abolition. But a boundless field is 
now opened for the extension of slavery to a 
country that had been happily freed from it; and 
it is much to be feared that the evil, which al- 
most seemed as if it were about to cease from 
self-exhaustion, will, at some not very distant 
day, present itself with such a fearful aspect as 
to menace the suppression of all rational civil 
government where slavery prevails. In the re- 
cent history of the civil wars of the South Amer- 
ican States we have seen what desperate uses 
have been made of the negro race and the mixed 
breeds called Sambos and by other names pro- 
ceeding from it; and, as similar causes will 
produce like effects at opportune seasons, we 
may well look with apprehension to a future 
time, when the negro race and its congeners, who 
already count by millions, may strive, though it 
is to he hoped in vain, for the mastery over our 
own descendants. These are opinions that give 
mortal offence to the existing generation of slave- 
dealing Americans, but transactions of this kind 
are pregnant with immense consequences that 



must influence the future late of their country; 
nor can observers who believe in the respon- 
sibility of man tor his actions be deterred Irom 
thinkmgthat their descendants will not be able 
to escape that retribution which nations as well 
as individuals owe to the violated laws of hu- 
manity and justice. This is exactly a case to 
which the awful words, "I will visit the sins of 
the lathers upon the children unto the third and 
fourth generations," most manifestly apply. 

On the edge of this prairie, and in various sit- 
uations not far distant from the river, is a chain 
of lakes like that near the Mammelle in Arkan- 
sas, and which evidently are upon the line of an 
ancient bed of the river. Five miles south of 
Lost Prairie is Little Prairie, a small patch of 
fertile land of about 150 acres; and five miles 
farther south of it is Fisher's Prairie, consisting 
of 1500 acres of good land. To the north-west 
of Lost Prairie are two others of consideiable 
extent, which go by the name of Elam's Prairie 
and Hickman's Prairie. The woodland around 
ihese would in any other country be deemed to 
be land of the first quality; but the people here 
are spoiled by the possession of land that mere- 
ly wants fencing and ploughing; any land that 
requires to be cleared and drained, whatever its 
quality may be, they consider a "hard bargain." 
lam not surprised at this: the land of Lost Prai- 
rie would spoil any farmer; it not only is surpri- 
singly fertile, but lies so high and dry that the 
black mould resembles heaps of ashes, and con- 
sequently requires no draining. Last year the 
summer was intensely hot, and one of the lakes, 
which covered a great area of country, but was 
not deep, suffered so much by evaporation, that 
it could not preserve its fish, which all died, and 
were to be seen floating on the water. The in- 
habitants, too, sometimes pay dearly for the pos- 
session of this beautiful.place, and were exceed- 
ingly sickly last year. 

On the sand-hills, about fourteen miles .south- 
west of this place, there is a kind of muscadel 
grape growing, which is very rich and sweet; 
the plant runs on the ground and bears an am- 
ber-coloured fruit. The other wild grape-vines 
in the woodland bottoms climb the loftiest trees, 
their stems hanging from gieat heights like huge 
boas, and are frequently nine inches in diameter. 
I made a collection of such vines as J thought 
might be cultivated with .success, and put them 
up with some other things in wet moss, and the 
last thing I did, after finishing my examination 
of the neighbourhood, was to cut a fine stick'of 
the Bois d'Arc; then seating myself upon my 
faithful Mis.souri, amidst all sorts of bundles and 
sticks, I turned my back upon the fair and sun- 
ny fields of Texas, now doomed to the cur.se of 
slave-labour, and on as serene, beautiful, and 
soft a December morning as ever was graced by 
a cloudless sky in Italy, I once more reached the 
banks of Red River. 



CHAPTER XXXV, 

Course and ancient Channels of Red River— The Great 
Raft— Method adopted of cutting it out— Danger to which 
New Orleans is exposed — Fight betw.xt a Man and a 
Panther— Tragical Story of a Hunter— Comical relation 
of a Solo played by a Negro to a Gang of Wolves— Fossil 
Oysters in the Saline. 

This important river, the Rio Roxo of the 
Spanish discoverers, takes its rise in the Rocky 



126 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



Mountains, and after flowing to the east through When this intelligent and energetic man came 



immense plains is compelled, when it reaches 
the mountainous country of Arl\ansas, to deflect 
a little to the south. On reaching the point 
where I was now about to cross it, it takes a 
course a little west of south, as far as the 33rd 
degree of N. lat. ; when it changes again, and 
takes up a channel to the E. of S., until it near- 
ly striljes the 31st degree of N. lat. ; here it in- 
clines to the north, receives the waters of Black 
River, and, with its increased volume, forces 
its way almost due south, and joins the Missis- 
sippi. In its entire line it is remarkable for a 
tortuous and serpentine course, and has fre- 
qnenily abandoned its channel in particular lo- 
calities, the ancient lines of which can always 
be traced. From the point where it turns to 
the east and north, a little north of the 31st de- 
gree of N. lat., it appears to have once flowed 
south down the line of the Atchafalaya River 
into the bay bearing that name in the Gulf of 
Mexico, and not to have joined the Mississippi. 
There is a chain of lagoons on that line still 
choked up with rafts of dead timber, which, 
when it had accumulated in sufficient quanti- 
ties, no doubt caused the current to deflect to 
the east, and gave the river its present direction 
into the Mississippi. These chains of lagoons, 
which are invariably upon the line of an ancient 
channel, abound both on the north and south 
sides of Red River, and are amongst the imme- 
diate causes of the insalubrity of the climate 
during certain months of the year. It was one 
of those extensive lagoons on the Mexican side 
of Red River, upon the beautiful tract of land 
over which I passed, which had lost its fish in 
consequence of excessive evaporation, the wa- 
ter having become glairy and incapable of sus- 
taining them. 

In ihoise remote periods when the False 
Washita and other tributaries of Red River 
were working out their channels, the deposits 
of dead timber must have been immense, not 
only filling the channel of Red River in the first 
instance down the line of the Atchafalaya, but 
subsequently blocking up extensive portions of 
its existing course to the Mississippi ; and it 
has frequently happened that, after those rafts 
have compelled the river to change its course, 
the same causes operating upon the new line, 
have turned the river back again into its old 
channel where it has forced its way througli the 
raft it had formerly deposited. We have evi- 
dence of this not far from the junction of Red 
River with the Mississippi, in the fragments of 
those rafts which are still to be seen sticking 
out of the banks of the stream, the main body 
having rotted away from the point which ter- 
minates what is called the Great Raft, and pass- 
ed down with the current into the Mississippi. 
Similar instances of this kind of operation, but 
of still greater antiquity, are to be seen in the 
hanks of the upper part of the Missouri, where 
the river has cut through beds of lignite. 

Of the extent of these deposits of dead timber 
something like an adequate idea can be formed 
by giving some details of the nature and extent 
of that particular one called the Great Raft, and 
of those means adopted to remove it, which do 
so much honour to the Congress that authorised 
tliem, and to Captain Shreve, the officer to 
whom the execution of the work was entrusted. 



upon the ground in the spring of 1833, he founds 
that the raft extended up the bed of the river 
for one hundred and fifty miles . Not that the' 
whole channel of the river was blocked up by- 
it, hut the dead timber occupying one-third of 
the breadth of the river, the whole stream had 
consequently become unnavigable, numerous 
mud islands having been formed everywhere, 
especially on the surface of the raft, and tree 
and hushes growing on them all. Not far from 
the line of the river were numerous lagoons and 
swamps — once its ancient bed — into which the 
river passed by bayous and low places ; these 
he stopped up with timber taken from the raft, 
and confining the stream to its bed, produced a 
current of three miles an hour; whereas, be- 
fore he began his operations, he found the river 
quite dead, and without current for forty miles 
below the southern termination of the raft. As 
soon as a current was established, he, by means 
of huge floating saw-mills, worked by steam, 
cut portions of the raft out, and let them float 
down the stream. At length the current be- 
came sufficiently lively to wear away the mud- 
banks and islands, and give an average depth 
of twenty-five feet to the river. During the 
first season of his operations he succeede4 in 
removing about seventy miles of the whole mass 
of the Great Raft, and it is now confidently be- 
lieved that a good steamboat navigation will 
soon be opened to its farthest extent ; so that, 
not only the salubrity of the country will be 
much improved, but an immense quantity of 
fertile lands will be drained and brought to their 
value, to indemnify the government for the ex- 
pense. 

The deflection from their courses of those no- 
ble rivers that flow in the southern portions of 
the United States, is a matter of the deepest im- 
portance to the inhabitants of those countries ; 
both as respects their navigation, their health, 
the drainage of their lands, and the value of 
tlieir landed property. Any one who looks at 
the course of the river Mississippi on the map, 
will see that, when it reaches the 3Isl degree 
of N, lat., it deflects east of south, and pursues 
a S.E. course to the Gulf of Mexico, passing the 
city of New Orleans on its way. But as nothing 
is more certain than that the Mississippi once 
continued its course to the Gulf, from the 31st 
degree by the line of the Atchafalaya, it is evi- 
dent that, if ever the river, at the point of con- 
fluence with the mouth of Red River, should be 
permitted to regain its ancient channel, the city 
of New Orleans will be in danger of being left 
high and dry, and the present bed from the Ba- 
lize upwards of becoming a line of lagoons and 
swamps. 

Having crossed the river, I again — after a 
long ride of 36 miles — reached the hospitable 
mansion of Judge Cross. In the morning I pur- 
sued my journey, and, coming to the little Mis- 
souri, found the waters very much abated, and 
no ferryman within sight. I remembered that 
the house was at some distance from the river, . 
and could not be seen from it, so taking a horn 
which I found suspended from a tree for the 
purpose, I blew in vain for at least half an hour. 
Nobody coming to ferry me across, I was redu- 
ced to the necessity of attempting to ford the 
river, which was accomplished with great in- 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



12 7 



convenience ; for Missouri having a great aver- 
sion to passing deep streams, anil not knowing 
the direction of the ford, which was in an ob- 
lique line, I got completely wet. On reaching 
the house I found two vulgar and very stupid 
white women, and a negress ; being a little out 
of humour I immediately began to reproach 
Ihem with not sending somebody down to point 
out the ford, when the old negress said she had 
told Miss Brindley (her mistress, about 51 years 
old) that it would be best to let her go down 
and see who was blowing the horn, but that she 
said, " She reckoned it was no matter, she al- 
lowed they would find the way across somehow 
or other." Upon this I said some very severe 
things to the young lady, and begged she would 
never be so inconsiderate again, as it might be 
a child on horseback, or an invalid incapable of 
assisting himself She seemed sensible of her 
fault, for she said if I would eat something I 
should have nothing to pay for it. 

That night I slept at 'Hignite's again, and 
starting early on a fine cold moonlight morning, 
rode on to Mrs. Barkman's, where I fed my 
horse. The old lady, who was standing at the 
door with her pipe in her left hand, and a com- 
fortable chew of tobacco in her cheek, shook 
hands heartily with me, and asked me how I 
liked Texas, adding before I could give her an 
answer, " that she could not see what folks was 

sich fools as to go there for." Having 

forded the Caddo without difficulty, I hastened 
on to Mitchell's, where I arrived at 4 p.m., and 
found my son, who had been endeavouring to 
amuse himself with hunting, but was thoroughly 
tired of the wretched fare Ihey had given him. 
Not feeling disposed to see any more of it my- 
self, and my horse appearing fresh, we put him 
into the waggon again alter half an hour's rest, 
and shouldering the rifle, I started again on foot 
for a settler's named Dean, about seven miles 
oflT, leaving my son to come on with the vehicle. 
It becam.e very dark when I got to the marshy 
springy ground, within four miles of the Washi- 
ta, and the track becoming at length nothing 
but mud and water, I was compelled to get into 
the woods, where the thickets and fallen timber 
not only embarrassed me very much, but now 
and then, on account of the darkness, obliged 
me to regain the track, that I might be sure I 
was in the right direction. Some stories that 
Hignite had related to me abou-t the panthers in 
this swamp, intruded themselves also a little 
into my imagination. He said — what I had be- 
fore heard — that this animal, when he has had 
poor hunting during the day, watches at night 
on a log or o-n the branch of a tree, and when 
he has an opportunity, will spring upon a man 
from behind, fasten his horrid claws into his 
neck and hack, and worry him to death. One 
unfortunate man, who was traversing the swamp 
durmg the last autumn at night, had been at- 
tacked in this way ; the panther succeeded in 
fastening himself upon the man's neck, who, 
being rendered desperate, at length, after a hard 
struggle, got the beast's head under his left arm, 
so that he could act upon the offensive, and 
thrust his right hand into its throat. During the 
conflict, the panther, with his fangs, tore all the 
veins in the man's face and neck open, and se- 
verely lacerated his shoulders and back. He 
s-ucceeded, however, in choking the beast, and 



retained strengt.i enough to reach his home,, 
where he died soon after. 

Now I was constantly running against branch- 
es of trees and logs, and had discovered, whea 
about to enter the swamp, that my rifle was not 
loaded, and that I had no ammunition with me: 
besides, there was my son behind, slowly ad- 
vancing with a lircd horse, and I had also to. 
think of him, so that this branch of zoology oc- 
cupied a great deal of my thoughts during this 
nocturnal walk. I regretted now that I had not 
provided myself with a Bowie knife. Much as 
the practice of carrying such a murderous in- 
strument is to be detested, still it is the most 
effective weapon in a close contest with one of 
these ferocious animals; for if, upon such aa 
occasion, a man has his presence of mind about 
him, he finds an opportunity of mortally wound- 
ing an adversary that exposes so large a frame 
to his knife. After a most tedious tramp in th& 
dark, through this disagreeable place, I at lengtli 
savvalight,and walking up found it was Dean's. 
An hour afterwards my son joined me. a circum- 
stance that rejoiced me exceedingly, and we 
proceeded to partake of an indifferent supper. 
The people of the house said the swamp was 
much infested with wolves, and related a sin- 
gular story of a hunter who, some time before, 
had perished through his own cupidity. The 
wolves had killed so many calves and pigs be- 
longing to the settlers, that they at length re- 
solved to raise a sum of money by subscription, 
and to give two dollars a head for every wolf 
scalp. This man, who lived alone in the woods, 
and was an experienced hunter, built a pen ia 
the swamp of open logs, ten feet high, without 
a roof; and having killed a two-year old heifer, 
look the carcase there as a bait. The neigh- 
bours knew what he was doing, but as not)ody 
had seen him for several days some of them 
went one morning to see what success he had 
had ; having reached the place they found the 
bones of the heifer outside, and thirty dead 
wolves which he had shot lying near them. On 
looking into the pen they saw one live wolf ia 
it and the man dead, with most of his flesh torn 
from him. It appeared from the marks around, 
from the scratchings upon the bark of the logs, 
and from the fact of one of the top ones being 
thrown down, that he had shot thirty from the 
pen whilst they were devouring the meat, but 
that the troop had been so numerous and raven- 
ous that, smelling the man, they had stormed 
the pen and devoured him. The one in the pen 
was wounded and had not been able to escape. 

Whilst upon wolf stories I must record a less- 
tragical one, that was related to me in a differ- 
ent part of the country. There had been a 
merry-making at new year amongst some of 
the settlers, and a black, who had a wife and 
children about three miles off, and who played 
on the fiddle, had been sent for to play " Virginia 
reels" to the young people. It was three in the 
morning when he took his kit under his arm to 
return home, and had been snowing for some 
time, with a high cold wind raging that drifted 
the snow iiiio heaps wherever he passed the 
clearings. H(! had got about half the distance, 
exceedingly fatigued, and wishing he was at 
home with his black pickanninies, when, hav- 
ing just lel't an extensive swamp which ran far 
into the country, he heard a strong pack of 



128 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



wolves "singont" as if they had scent of some- 
thing. The wolf, wtien in a famished state, has 
a very keen scent, and can detect a change in 
the air at great distances ; 

" Leva il muso, odorando il vento infido." 

/ pomessi Sposi. 

And, in this particular instance, it happened that 
they scented Mr. Marcus Luffett, (Marquis La 
Fayette) — for such was the name he was known 
by— who had rather a strong hide. He had very 
soon reason to believe that was the case ; the 
wolves were to leeward of him, and were evi- 
dently coming in his direction : so, feeling as- 
sured of this, and despairing of reaching his 
home in time, he employed all his powers to 
reach a small abandoned cabin in a clearing by 
the road-side, which was about a quarter of a 
mile off; the roof of which was partly destroy- 
ed, but the door of which was yet hung. On 
came the ferocious animals, barking and shriek- 
ing; they were upon his track, and great were 
his apprehensions of falling into their power : 
but, on gaining the clearing, he fortunately found 
the snow was drifted away there, and did not 
impede him, so that he was just able to rush in 
season into the cabin and clamber up the logs 
inside to a rafter that ran across. The door he 
did not attempt to shut, for the wolves were 
within ten yards of him when he entered, and 
he was afraid he could not keep it shut against 
the pressure of a large body of desperate ani- 
mals. Great was the rage of the wolves when 
they entered at being balked of their prey, and, 
as Mr. IMarcus Luffett observetl, " Dey carried 
on jist as if de old debhel himself was inside of 
ebery one of dere cossed troats." The cabin 
was at one tmie quite filled with them, and he 
said that they went in and out and round the 
cabin, to see if there was any place by which 
they could get at so savoury a joint as that which 
was hanging up, but rather too high in the larder. 
Fmding that he was safe, he began to acquire 
contidence, and watching his opportunity he 
scrambled along until he got over the door; 
and there, with a little management, he con- 
trived with his legs to shut a great number of 
them in the cabin. Those outside appearing to 
have gone away to look for other game, and 
those mside remaining silent with their glaring 
eyes fixed intently upon him, the Marquis, who 
bad no small idea of his skill, now thought he 
would treat them to a " Virginia reel," and 
forthwith commenced with his kit to astonish 
the lupine auditory with such a solo as they had 
never heard before. At first they howled, the 
performer not appearing to give universal satis- 
faction, but day beginning to dawn and findin-g 
they could not get out, they crouched down on 
the floor of the cabin all together, and remained 
silent. As soon as he thought the morning was 
sufficiently advanced to remove all apprehen- 
sion from those outside, he got through a hole 
in the roof and hastened to his family. Imme- 
diately collecting a number of men armed with 
rifies and axes he returned with them to the 
cabin, which they all entered by the hole from 
whence he had escaped. The wolves were 
crouched together as he had left them, and 
showed now as sneaking a disposition as it had 
before been furious. They shot no less than 
thirty-seven ; all the skins were given to Mr. 
Marcus Luffett, and the neighbours subscribed 



twenty-five dollars in cash, as some return for 
the important service he had rendered them by 
the destruction of so many depredators upon 
their calves and pigs. 

Pursuing our journey very early in the morn- 
ing, we re-crossed the Washita, and leaving the 
road on the left by which we had come from the 
Hot Springs, we reached Trammel's and stop- 
ped awhile to feed our horse. Here I saw a 
number of fine young turkeys that had been 
hatched by a tame one, from eggs which had 
been taken from a wild bird. Some domestic 
turkeys were running with them, but those of 
the wild breed were easily distinguishable ; they 
were more dark and glossy in their plumage, 
and had a very quick and bright eye : their move- 
ments too were much more lively than those of 
the tame ones. One of the women in the house 
told me that they were not tender and difficult 
to raise like the chicks of the domestic breed, 
but were as hardy as young chickens. All the 
wild turkeys that I have yet seen are of a dark 
glossy plumage, nor do I hear of any person hav- 
ing seen a wild one which was white or yellow. 

We were now upon our old road again, and 
the petro-siliceous hills and ferruginous con- 
glomerates. Towards evening we crossed the 
Saline, and whilst my son took our vehicle to 
our old " Little Pickey" quarters, I examined 
the beach of the Saline, which had fallen very 
much, and found some fine valves of fossil oys- 
ters in the rocky bed of the channel. It appears 
that all the streams from Little Rock to Red 
River, which run to the south, have tertiary de- 
posits in them, as well as those which run to 
the east and empty into the Arkansas. These 
deposits containing great quantities of marine 
shells, afford conclusive proof that the ocean at 
one of the most recent geological periods has 
flowed up to the base of the highlands from Can- 
ada to Red River, tertiary deposits existing; on 
the line of the St. Lawrence, at Martha's Vine- 
yard, and at innumerable localities from thence 
southward to Red River. 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 

Reach Little Rock again — A pleasant Cliristmas Eve — Em- 
bark in a Steamer for New Orleans — A painful IVIoment 
— Structure of the banks of the Arkansas— Snags and 
Sawyers explained — Frequent Change of the Channel of 
the iliver— Cotton Plantations — Cause of the Variegated 
Structure of the Banks explained. 
Early in the morning, with a bright moon- 
light, we pursued our journey by the old road to 
Little Rock, and ere we had proceeded three 
miles the largest and the finest flock of wild tur- 
keys we had yet seen crossed the road, issuing 
from the woods one after the other, all full 
grown and fat, in their richest black and brown 
plumage. Their extreme beauty and the happi- 
ness they seemed to enjoy were their protection ; 
and after admiring them we drove on and reach- 
ed Little Rock about 4 p.m., after exactly a 
month's absence. Here we found the same 
people and the same unvarying occurrences ; 
we had seen everything in the neighbourhood, 
and there was nothing now to tempt ns to pro- 
long our stay. We therefore devoted our re- 
maining time to packing up our collections, 
bringing up journals, and preparing for our de- 
parture ; but we were still desirous of seeing 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



129 



other portions of the southern country, and it 
was a niatier whicli engaged our earnest atirn- 
tion Imw we could best accomplish this. The 
rainy season was about to set in, the roads 
would be extremely bad, and as the streams 
would be swollen so as to be impass^able in 
many places for our vehicle, we determmed to 
leave it behind. As I'o our horse, both my son 
and myself had become attached to him ; he 
was a beautiful animal, was docile, had served 
us faithfully, and we were unwilling to part with 
him. After much deliberation, therefore, it was 
determined that my son should make Missouri 
Ihe partner of his fortunes, and should follow 
an entirely new line of country until we met 
again in the .\tlantic states. As to myself, I 
determined to carry out the plan I had formed 
of examining the Arkansas river to its mouth, 
and proceeding thence down the Mississippi to 
New Orleans, return by way of Mobile in Ala- 
bama, the territory of the Creek Indians, the 
states of Georgia, South Carolina, North Caro- 
lina, and Virginia. By taking these two distinct 
lines of country we should have an opportunity 
of examining 4000 miles more of the surface 
and the strata south of the Potomac, an amount 
of observation which, added to the 2000 miles 
at least which we had already made, would fur- 
nish a great many data for forming an approxi- 
mate view of the geology of the southern por- 
tions of the United States. 

The river Arkansas was at this time so low 
that the steamers, now on their way, were un- 
able to reach Little Rock, but the barometer had 
given decided indications of a change in the 
weather, and I was sure that rain would fall 
soon. We therefore held ourselves ready to 
start as soon as this should take place, for the 
.steamers, especially if they are bound down the 
river, sometimes only touch at Little Rock for 
an hour or two, and if a boat is missed at this 
time of the year a traveller, who has no other 
means of getting away, may be detained all the 
winter. As the period of our departure ap 
preached I perceived that the Swiss gentleman, 
Mr. T********, who has been named in this 
journal, began to despond , we had seen a great 
deal of him ; he was a person of various infor- 
mation and considerable talent, and appeared to 
feel as if he were shipwrecked for life, and 
thrown upon a barren coast without any rational 
hope of ever being restored to society again, or 
of meeting a brother he had in the United Slates, 
but whom he was without the means of joining. 
I could not bear to see a gentlemanly person of 
so much merit left in such a painful and hope- 
less condition: if I had left Little Rock without 
him, I should have felt as much remorse as if I 
had abandoned one whom I was bound to pro- 
tect ; and having got into that sort of kind feel- 
ing, I thought It right to let in a ray of sunshine 
upon his existence, and proposed to him to ac- 
company me. I imagine Mr. T******** packed 
rtp his portmanteau with as much pleasure as I 
had done my own, and from that moment he he 
came my companion for the rest of my journey 
Whilst we were wailing for the river to rise 
great preparations were making to celebrate 
Christmas Eve by a ball at one of the taverns, 
.and although f am not a great frequenter of t)alls 
I was very anxious to be present at this. 
Christmas Eve, even in the older parts of the 
R 



United States, is not, I believe, distinguished by 
any kind of festivity amongst Protestants, with 
tlie exception of the few Episcopalian families 
wlio still adhere to the festal customs of the 
mother country ; for the Presbyterians and oth- 
er sectarians rather seem to prefer to desecrate 
than to celebrate the great Christian festivals, 
and as they form an overwhelming majority of 
the population, Christmas or Christmas Eve are 
seldom mentioned. But a celebration of Christ- 
mas Eve at Litlle Rock, of all the places in the 
world, coifld not lail to be something very extra- 
ordinary, and worth attending, since it was 
probable that all the devotional piety of the ter- 
ritory of Arkansas would break out upon the oc- 
casion. A faint idea of the nature of the affair 
and of the style of the ball had been already 
given to me by a person who had attended one 
the preceding year. There were about 100 men 
and 3 women. The men had their hats on, and 
danced armed with pistols and bowie knives, 
whilst the landlord, assisted by two of his peo- 
ple, with his hat cocked on one side, took pitch- 
ers of strong whiskey-punch round the room, 
and clapping the gentl^-meii on the back, gave 
them to drink. As tins was the principal busi- 
ness of the evening, and the pitchers unceasingly 
went round, the whole party soon got amazing- 
ly drunk, but were very good-natured, " for there 
were only a few shots fired in fun." 

Unluckily for our chance of seeing the ball, it 
began to rain heavily in the night of the 22nd, 
and continued the next morning, when news 
reached Lilile Rock that a steamer from the 
Mississippi had arrived within twenty miles of 
the town, and would only remain for passen- 
gers until one o'clock p.m. As soon as we 
heard the intelligence and had reason to believe 
it was correct, we got everything into our ve- 
hicle, and mounting a hired horse, I rode on be- 
fore, to detain the steamer, leaving my son and 
Mr. T******** to follow in the waggon. Hav- 
ing crossed the Arkansas in the ferry-boat I 
pursued the military road to Memphis for near 
three miles, and then turned into an indifferent 
road running parallel to the river. When I had 
got about fifteen miles I learned at a cabin 
where I called for information, that I had still 
ten miles to go at least, as there was a chain 
of lagoons to head, which, they said, had been 
an old bed of the river, but that for some dis- 
tance before I should get to the place called 
Eafflc Bend, where the steamer was, there was 
no ^longer a track of any kind for a waggon. 
This was discouraging; the rain was pouring 
down all the time, the road was bad, and it was 
becoming problematical whether we could ef- 
fect our object at all, for the steamer, not know- 
ing we were on the road, would have no motive 
for waiting beyond the appointed hour. How- 
ever, as everything might depend on my push- 
ing on, I took the best directions I could get, 
and hastening forward, soon came to a deep 
and bad bayou, which I got across with some 
difficulty, quite despairing of their being able to 
get through it with the waggon. I now came 
upon alternate beds of sand and mud, which 
had been deposited when the river overflowed 
Us banks in June, 1833, a period when many 
plantations were destroyed by deep deposits of 
sand. To these succeeded thick corn-brakes 
and a total termination tq the track ; it seemed 



130 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



as if everything had combined to prevent the 
possibility of a four-wheeled carriage reacliing 
the steamer. The afternoon was now wearing 
away, so, dismounting and fastening my horse 
to a tree, I walked through the brake to the 
bank of the Arkansas, thinking there might he 
a chance, as the land was not very low, of my 
seeing the steamer if she had not yet got under 
way. Never was man more startled or more 
pleased than I was at hearing the steam blow- 
ing ofTlrom the boat, which was lying moored 
to the bank, almost immediately below me. 
This, in fact, was Eagle Bend, on the left bank 
of the Arkansas, which jutted out into the riv- 
er, and was about twenty feet high. Hastening 
down the bank I hailed the steamer, which was 
that instant getting under way, and giving the 
necessary information to the captain, he agreed 
to leave his yawl with one of his men, to take 
us off, while he dropped down to a wood-yard 
on the oi.her side of the river, to take in fuel. 
Having come to a good understanding with the 
man in the yawl, I now remounted, and hasten- 
ing back, came up with the waggon about five 
miles back, which was much sooner than I ex- 
pected, notwithstanding my knowledge of the 
resolution of my son in cases of difficulty. In , 
crossing the bayou they had found it necessary ' 
to unload the carriage, take the body and wheels 
off, and carry the pieces up to the opposite 
bank, as they found it to he quite impossible to 
draw it up with the horse. We now all pro- 
ceeded towards the yawl, when, in crossing an- 
other bad place, the shafts of the waggon got 
broken, and here they were obliged to stop 
wlulst I rode on and called the man in the yawl 
to our assistance. Tying the horses up in the 
cane-brake we gave the man one of the trunks 
— my son and myself carried the other, and Mr. 
T******** managed to take the portfolio and 
some instruments I had. Night was just set- 
ting in when we reached the yawl, excessively 
fatigued, and succeeded in getting our luggage 
into it. All this lime the steamer had been 
making signals for us to come off, but we were 
too busy to mind them. The man was in my 
interest now, and, as he sensibly observed, "If 
the captain wanted him particular, he could jist 
as well cross the river and lend us a hand." 

The most painful part of the business was yet 
to be gone through. My son, vv-ho had been so 
long my failhful companion in much difficulty 
and danger, Vvas now to part from me, and to 
be left behind in a wilderness, without any one 
to assist him. I desired him to ride his horse 
to a cabin a few miles back, and send the peo- 
ple for the broken carriage the next morning 
I knew his address and ability, and felt assured 
that he would do very well. But the moment 
of parting was painlul to both of us, and as we 
rowed down the river and beheld him standing 
on the desolate hank of the Arkansas, watching 
our boat in the imperfect twilight, I was very 
much affected, and thought it would have been 
belter to have spared us both such a moment. 
Night had set in when we reached the steamer, 
which seemed clean and nice. I got a very 
good berth for myself, and should have been per- 
fectly comfortable if my mind had been at ease. 

Our steamer got under way at break of day, 
December 24ih, and we proceeded down the 
liver, which in this low state of the water is 



about 300 yards wide. Nothing can be more 
monotonous than the country through which 
this muddy stream holds its course, the whole 
area being a fertile alluvial deposit of nearly the 
same level, in which the water has worn a 
channel, leaving banks froii\ 20 to 30 feet high, 
composed of fiuvjalile deposits of clay and sand 
of different colours, of which a dull red prepon- 
derates. Sometimes the banks rise to forty 
feet, in which situations the land is free (roui 
inundation. When we had made about 25 
miles, we passed some high banks called the 
Red Pine Bluffs, from TOO to 130 feet high, 
which the river is rapidly wearing down, un- 
dermining them beneath, and causing huge 
masses to fall incessantly from the top. This 
process is more interesting to the geologist than . 
to the cotton planter, for the fresh fracture ena- 
bles him to trace for great distances the party- 
coloured deposits which alternate with each 
other, s<ime being red, some white, some gray, 
and oftentimes all of them intermixed together. 
The comparative height of these Red Pine 
Bluffs enables them to assume an important 
appearance in a country where the surrounding 
land is at a level of about 2.5 feet above the wa- 
ter. Farther down, about 20 miles, we came to 
similar bluffs of a lighter colour, called the 
Wkiie Bluffs; and about 30 miles still lower 
down we reached the Red Pine Blvffs, whicli 
are higher than any of the others. As we had 
to stop occasionally to take in wood, I availed 
myself always of the detention to examine the 
hanks where they were accessible. At the Red 
Pine Bluffs there is a bed of limestone formed 
of broken-down oyster-shells like those in the 
Saline, which was the first calcareous deposit 
I met with in the banks. 

The whole course of this river is extremely 
serpentine, the general direction to the Missis- 
sippi being S.E. ; but the channel every five or 
six miles describes curves, sometimes going 
N.E., sometimes S.W. Upon such occasions 
the main channel is alternately on the right and 
left bank of the river; when on the right bank 
an extensive sandy beach projects itself from 
the opposite shore, and sometimes encroaches 
so far into the channel as to render it difficult 
to get the steamer through. We often got 
aground in less than three feet water, but the 
captain was a man of experience and resolu- 
tion, and always succeeded in backing the 
steamer or forcing it through the mud, although 
it sometimes caused a delay of several hours to 
get the boat off again. These beaches some- 
times contain more than fifty acres, and are 
thrown up by the stream as it abrades the 
banks at the foot of wliich it runs. In the 
course of this voyage I received the most com- 
plete practical lesson as to the manner in which 
these streams get into a serpentine course, that 
had ever been presented to me on so large a 
scale. Masses covered with trees and canes 
were constantly falling from the banks, and be- 
ing carried to the bottom of the channel with 
immense quantities of clay about their roots, in 
some places almost filled the river with what 
are called snarrs and sawyers. The first are 
trees or stout branches firmly fixed in the mud, 
sometimes appearing above, sometimes being 
under the water, and these frequently impale 
the steamers if a good look-out is not kept : 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



131 



the sawyers are flexible and clastic brandies, 
over a part of wliich tlie current pa>-ses, and 
presses lliem into tlie water, from wliicli they 
rise by their elasticity, producing a sawing mo- 
tion up and down. These not only embarrass 
the navigation excessively, but when they ex- 
tend densely from the bank they once grow 
upon, offer a point of resistance to the current, 
which then inclmes to the otber side, and finally 
wearing its way to the opposite side of the riv- 
er, begins to abrade the bank there, and throw 
up another sand-beach. 

In consequence of this frequent deviation 
from a straight course, many long but narrow 
reaches of land, as they are called, are formed, 
sometimes not more than fifty feet wide at their 
base ; and through these the stream frequently 
breaks with great impetuosity, when the river 
is miich swollen and the floods come down from 
the upper country, forcing a new channel through 
the read), and leaving a considerable area of 
land isolated on the side of the bed it has aban- 
doned and left dry During some of these irre- 
sistible freshets, the maddened river has soine- 
times even got under those extensive sand 
beaches, and after lifting them up as high as 
30 feet above the general level of the land, has 
borne them along, and finally deposited them at 
a distance from the channel of the river. I 
have seen several of these arenaceous deposits 
four or five hundred yards from the edge of the 
bank, covering the soil many feet deep, and ut- 
terly ruining various plantations. In some in- 
stances the flood has ploughed up the whole of 
the soil with the cotton and maize growing 
upon it to the extent of forty acres, and depos- 
ited it in a mass on a beach lower down. At 
a Monsieur Barraque's, an ancient French set- 
tler, who lives about 140 miles from Little 
Rock, on the left bank of the Arkansas, I saw 
a curious instance of this kind. 

The few settlers on the bank of this river are 
all cotton planters, and experience has taught 
them now to get upon the highest banks beyond 
the reach of inundation. Whenever we saw a 
number of bales rolled down the bank we al- 
ways stopped to take them in as part of the 
steamer's freight to New Orleans. Upon one 
occasion the number of bales was so great that 
we were detained seven hours, and hearing that 
there was an old bed in tue vici.uty which the 
^iver had formerly abandoned I went to exam- 
ine it. It was an immense chasm in the land, 
on the left bank, about 300 yards broad and 
about 90 feet deep, extended several miles, 
bearing the appearance of a reddish, sandy val- 
ley, containing many accumulations of old sand- 
bars and snags, and was divided from the pres- 
ent bed of the river by a high ridge, where the 
young wood was beginning to grow very thick- 
ly, on a surface from whence all the timber had 
evidently been swept away by the flood when 
the change in the channel took place. In this 
chasm I saw no symptoms of animal exist- 
ence, except the track of a solitary deer, nor 
could any thing be imagined more savage or 
lonely. But what exceedingly interested rne 
when I got into it, were the curious party-col- 
oured deposits of clay and sand, which had been 
left by the various inundations of the river that 
had taken place since this channel was aban- 
doned. These inundations could almost be 



enumerated by the thin strata they had produ- 
ced. There would be a layer of red clay, then 
one of white sand, then again a mixture of both, 
and occasionally large blotches or masses of 
whitish clay enclosed in a regular deposit of red 
argillaceous earth. The last deposit consisted 
of about an inch of dull red argillaceous mat- 
ter, most probably, for reasons which will be 
adduced, brought from the country through 
which the river Canadian flows. Appearances 
of this kind are often met with in the indurated 
rocks, where they can only be accounted for 
conjecturally. On this extensive continent, 
containing rivers whose courses, and the inci- 
dents produced in them, can be traced for near 
three thousand miles, there is some encourage- 
ment to look for the cairses of similar phenom- 
ena ; for every one, on inspecting them, must 
feel desirous of satisfying hims6lf why the same 
river at one time deposits red clayey matter, at 
another time white sand, and at another period 
mixed earthy matter, repeating the order of 
these deposits with something almost amount- 
ing to regularity. 

This is undoubtedly owing to the extraordi- 
nary character fif the River Arkansas, a mighty 
flood, which, deriving its most remote sources 
from the melted snows of peaks of the Rocky 
Mountains from 10,000 to 15,000 feet highland 
holding its course amongst the m<umtain chains 
for at least 200 miles, pursues its way near SOOO 
miles before it joins the Mississippi. But the 
sources of this immense stream are numerous, 
and some of thein are six or seven hundred 
miles apart from west to east, lis southern- 
most branch, the south fork of the Canadiar^, 
receives streams which rise near the 34lh de- 
gree of N. lat. ; parallel to this are its other 
branches, the river Canadian, the north fork of 
the Canadian, and the Nesuketonga or Grand 
Saline. Its most northerly source is from the 
Rocky Mountains between 39° and 40° N. lat., 
whilst its most easterly sources, comprehend- 
ing the Verdegris, the Neosho, and the Illinois,, 
rise in the parallels of from 37° to 38° N. lat., 
at least six hundred miles to the east of the 
central and principal sources in the Rocky 
Mountains. The waters, therefore, that take 
their rise at points separated by so many de- 
grees of longitude, have to pass through all the 
zones of mineral matter which they intersect 
through such a great extent of surface on their 
way to the Mississippi. Nor do these branches 
make slight impressions upon the surface, the 
southern and western ones being all of them 
fine rivers, that may fairly be classed with the 
most important European streams, and the 
eastern ones are only a degree less important. 
I have been informed by some persons who 
have passed across the heads of the southern 
and western sources of this noble river, that in 
some places it has varied its channel so much 
as to have abraded the whole surface for sev- 
eral miles in width, and that in one or two sit- 
uations the floods have torn up and desolated 
the whole country for a space equal to ten miles 
wide. The southernmost sources flow through 
an ancient deposit of red argillaceous matter 
for several hundred miles, which gives the red 
muddy character to the Canadian and its 
branches. The western and northern sources 
bring down mineral matter of various kinds and 



132 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



colours ; but to the east some of the branches 
take their rise in the petro-siliceous country 
through which I had lately passed, and the 
white arenaceous deposits are sufficiently indic- 
ative'of their eastern origin. 

The branches which have been referred to 
being of unequal length, and separated by great 
geographical distances, and the melting of the 
snow and the ramy seasons being governed by 
differences in latitude and elevation, they aie 
consequently subject to increase their volume 
at distinct periods; so that the main channel 
of the Arkansas is not only sometimes flooded 
from one set of branches, sometimes from an- 
other, but is occasionally swollen from a com- 
bination of them all ; the evidence of the par- 
ticular state of the river at any one period being 
to be found in the sedimentary deposits left by 
the inundations, which are to be considered as 
representing the mineral character of the dis- 
tricts through which the waters have passed. 
A close observation of the eccentric movements 
of floods of this class throws a great deal of 
light upon the circumstances which, whether 
arising from partial eddies produced by a change 
of level effected in periods of inundation, or 
from ordinary mechanical causes, have occa- 
sioned both the regularity and irregularity of 
deposits ; and tends to explain how blotches of 
mineral matter, both large and small, are found 
enclosed in masses of a different character, as 
in the instances where the whiter matter of the 
eastern branches is found enclosed in the ex- 
tensive layers deposited by the waters of the 
Canadian. 



CHHAPTER XXXVII 

Approximative Method suggested of calculating the Age of 
Fluviatile Deposits— Brutal Conduct of the Passengers— 
The Quapaw Indians a Tribe of the Osages— Monsieur 
Barraqu6, his Adventures— A Young Vagabond — Post of 
Arkansas — Monsieur Notr6be — The River encroaching 
upon the Country. 

The manner in which fluviatile deposits are 
here effected upon so immense a scale, may 
perhaps suggest the origin of various mineral 
phenomena observed in the older indurated 
rocks, especially of those intermixtures of ma- 
rine and fresh-water strata which took place in 
rem(Jte periods, when parts of the surface of the 
earth seem to have been exposed to repeated 
subsidences and elevations. Although we have 
no geographical data to form an opinion of the 
causes which have deposited such fre.sh-water 
strata, yet we see how in modern times they 
are brought into place, and perhaps can avail 
ourselves of what is passing before our eyes to 
form an approximate estimate of the period of 
time required for a deposit of a particular thick- 
ness. The inundation of June, 1833, alone de- 
posited a layer of one inch of red clay in the 
chasm alluded to, which can be traced of the 
same uniform character for several miles, and 
every year brings at least one inundation ; and 
although a great portion of this extensive allu- 
vial country has been deposited under the sea, 
as we see by the calcareous beds containing 
marine fossils, yet the whole mineral matter ap- 
pears to have been brought down from the 
plains above, so that the process has been going 
on for an immense period before the historic pe- 



riod. The surface of the country, too, in this 
vicinity is such as it has been for a long time 
since it was left by the ocean ; for upon some 
of the edges of the ancient banks of the river 
are Indian mounds, with trees growing on them, 
perhaps five hundred years old, so that the 
mounds are at least as ancient as the existing 
vegetable bodies. Quantities of Indian arrow- 
heads, too, are strewed around them, made of 
the siliceous mineral of the Washita hills, and 
some have been found by the settlers buried 
several feel beneath the surface, facts which 
show that this alluvial country, which was pos- 
sessed by some bands of the Quapaws when the 
whites first began to occupy it, has been inhab- 
ited by the aborigines at a very distant period. 

When the settlement of the country shall 
hereafter bring other data forward connected 
with these considerations, perhaps it will not 
be found impossible to assign reasonable limits 
to the period required for the structure of this 
part of the southern country. It is true the de- 
posits made by the annual inundations are nat- 
urally too irregular and variable to afford syste- 
matic data for a chronological computation of 
the origin of these fluviatile beds ; but whenev- 
er a careful inquiry of this kind is made, it will 
be found important to note them very accurate- 
ly. Neither would it be impossible to calculate 
approximatively the amount of sedimentary mat- 
ter brought down annually by the Arkansas, or 
any of the turbid tributaries of the Mississippi ; 
for the principal floods of the Arkansas and 
Missouri, caused by the melting of the snow in 
the Rocky Mountains, although they are irregu- 
larly swollen during the winter and spring 
months by rain, usually take place in June. At 
all these times they bear along their greatest 
quantity of solid matter towards the Mississip- 
pi, the finest particles of which they consign to 
the ocean, where, being met and stopped, they 
are deposited and distributed into levels which 
are continually extending themselves seaward, 
to be laid dry perhaps at some future day, as the 
alluvial plains which now form the surface of 
the country have formerly been. 

The lowest state of the Arkansas occurs 
from July to November, inclusive ; during a 
portion of this time it is often too shallow to be 
navigable from the Mississippi to Little Rock. 
In this state of the River, the current being 
sluggish, the water quasi stagnant, and the solk 
id matter held in suspension very trifling, al- 
though the water is always tinged a little with 
it, a set of experiments might be conducted, 
showing the mean quantity of sedimentary mat- 
ter brouglit annually down during the rises of 
the river, and during the low-water periods. 
Furnished with the cubic quantity of solid mat- 
ter thus obtained in a given period, and apply- 
ing it as a divisor to the probable whole quanti- 
ty of fluviatile deposit in the entire alluvial area, 
a chronological period might be approximative- 
ly assigned to the origin of these rivers, the 
commencement of these deposits, and the with- 
drawal of the ocean from this part of the coun- 
try. Perhaps also the period of its fitness to 
receive terrestrial animals might thus be found 
to accord with other indications of the existence 
of an aboriginal race. 

On reaching the steamer, we found it very 
clean, and but few passengers on board ; I 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



133 



therefore flattered myself with the enjoyment 
of many tranquil moments, in which I could 
daily bring up my journal, finish my sketches, 
and contrive a few comforts for a voyage which 
would probably last ten days ; but I never was 
more engregiously disappomted at any period of 
my life. The passengers were some low per- 
sons on their way from Red River to New Or- 
leans on business, just recovering from the ef- 
fects of malaria and calomel, and who gave 
themselves unrestrainedly up to such beastly 
vulgar babits, even when at table, that it became 
impossible to remain a spectator of their ster- 
corarious proceedings. Although the weather 
was often cold and rainy, Mr. T******** and 
myself were often driven on deck to eat our 
food, to avoid the disgusting scenes that were 
going on around the fireside in the cabin. The 
captain was a resolute vigilant man, but he 
cared nothing about what was done there, leav- 
ing the passengers to regulate those matters 
amongst themselves. Tbe arrival of night was 
a blessing to us ; if we could not sleep, at least 
our eyes and ears were not so much offended ; 
for tbe brutes, our fellow- passengers, gorged 
with the coarse things they had eaten, could 
always sleep, like hogs, the moment they laid 
themselves down. We made various attempts 
to put matters upon a better footing, but could 
not succeed, these animals not having the 
slightest idea of there being such a thing as 
indecency. In the morning I was careful to be 
always up first, get a corner to myself on deck 
to perform my ablutions in, and when it was 
very cold I used to go to the engineer's room to 
warm myself, who was a clever sort of man in 
his way. 

The first day we made about seventy-five 
miles, and the next morning proceeded twenty 
miles to a Mrs. Embree's, a widow, who culti- 
vated a cotton plantation ; she appeared to be 
an active respectable person, and lived with 
some order and comfort in her double cabin. 
We took in her crop of cotton for the New Or- 
leans market, as well as that of her son-in-law. 
Judge Roane, an intelligent person who em- 
barked with us to go a short distance down the 
river. Nearly opposite to the widow's is an 
old village of the Quapaw Indians, which had 
been the residence of a Mons. Vaugin, a French- 
man who died lately. The name Quapaw, as 
it is commonly called, is pronounced, as a half- 
breed informed me, in a strong guttural manner, 
as if it were Gkwhawpaw. From a vocabulary 
which I obtained from this person, the language 
they spoke appears to be a dialect of the Wha- 
shash, or Osages, from whom they have proba- 
bly separated, as these last have their hunting- 
grounds only about 250 miles to the north-west. 
From hence we proceeded about 20 miles, to 
the plantation of a Mons. Barraque, which is 
very well chosen, bemg somewhat higher than 
the line of inundation, and perfectly level for a 
great distance. This is one of the best cotton 
plantations on the river, to judge from the size 
and lu.xurianee of the plants, which however 
were not equal to those I had seen on the Mex- 
ican side ot Red River. If the company in the 
steamer had been even tolerable, this little voy- 
age would have passed off agreeably, for these 
stoppages gave me frequent opportunities of 
looking at the country, and calling to see the 



different families, all of whom, by their affability, 
showed how happy they were to offer civilities 
to a stranger who visited their country for the 
first time. The French families were delighted, 
too, that I could converse with them in their 
native language, and were in raptures when 
they heard that I had even been in Paris. This 
fact of itself procured me the most decided at- 
tentions. 

Mons. Barraque's family were all French, and 
occupied a house containing two large and very- 
comfortable rooms, neatly and sufficiently fur- 
nished. On entering I found Madame Barra- 
que, four young ladies, and some of their friqnds, 
all of whom received me witli a charming po- 
liteness peculiar to the French, and engaged 
me in an interesting chat with them for an hour. 
It was evident that they had ideas and opin- 
ions a little above the ordinary run of the old 
Creole French ; and upon my remarking this, 
Mons. Barraque informed me that he had only 
emigrated from France upon the fall of his mas- 
ter. Napoleon ; after which event, being uncer- 
tain of his advancement in the army upon the 
restoration of the Bourbon family, he had em- 
barked for New Orleans, had wandered up the 
Arkansas, and commenced a trade with some 
of the western Indians : it was his bad fortune, 
however, to be robbed and plundered of every- 
thing he possessed, and in this state he made 
his way back to the French settlements on the 
Arkansas, where " tout le monde etoite en- 
chante de le revoir." Frenchmen make a point 
of never being unhappy long, so he married the 
daughter of one of the old settlers at whose 
house he staid ; and after a while, with the as- 
sistance of his father-in-law, built a bouse, and 
gradually cleared a plantation. He is now a 
successful cotton planter, and being himself a 
native of the lower Pyrenees, has given the 
name of " New Gascony" to the district he re- 
sides in. To judge from appearances, Madame 
has no small portion of the Quapaw blood in 
her, which is not an uncommon thing, as most 
of the Creole French who lived out of New Or- 
leans connected themselves with Indian wom- 
en ; her mother no doubt was of that stocky 
but she is a very good-looking woman notwith- 
standing her Indian blood, has French manners, 
and has produced a fine young family. 

As soon as the signal was made for the de- 
parture of the steamer, I went to the house to 
make my bow, and to my surprise found Mons. 
Barraque also ready in his travelling dress, in- 
tending to go down the river as far as the post 
of .Arkansas. The affectionate manner in which, 
he seemed to live with his family was very en- 
gaging ; at tbe words " Embrassez-moi, mes 
enfants,'' all ran to hitn, and they took a gentle 
and tender leave of each other, including Ma- 
dame. On our way to the boat I said to him, 
" Apres tons vos mallieurs. Monsieur, au moins 
vous avez trouve un endroit oii vous etes heu- 
reiix," when to my extreme surprise he an- 
swered me in the very words of my old merry 
travelling companion Mons. Nidtlet, when I was 
passing through Tennessee, "Monsieur, quand 
il n'y a pas de choix, tout est bon !" a most com- 
fortable maxim, if it can be cordially acted up 
to, and in the practice of which we fastidious 
Englishmen are not a tenth part as wise as our 
lively neighbours.. 



134 



TRAVELS IN AMEEICA. 



M. Barraque was a great acquisition to Mr. 
'T******** and myself on board ; lie was full of 
■conversation, his adventures and opinions were 
amusing, and we found him a very intelligent 
and agreeable fellow-passenger. This was more 
than could be said of the others, and especially 
of a young reprobate of tlie name of Powers, 
apparently not more than twenty-one years old. 
This youth was decently dressed, and from his 
language was evidently from New England, 
"where the young rnen are generally well brought 
up. But he was a scape-grace of the worse 
kind, was in a constant state of intoxication 
with feome ardent spirits he had found on board 
of the boat, and behaved in the most ungoverna- 
ble and ruffian-like manner. I had observed him 
upon several occasions, and had cautiously ab- 
stained from having anything to do with him. 
Knowing that the steward of the boat had some 
claret on board which he had purchased in New 
Orleans, I desired him to bring me a bottle of 
it, that I might offer some wine toM. Barraque 
This drimken puppy, finding that I did not offer 
it to him, broke out in the most insolent man- 
ner to me, and jumping up with a knife in his 
hand, told me, before all the passengers, that he 

" had a good mind to cut my throat." I 

never was more tempted to knock a fellow's 
brains out, but considering his extreme youth, 
I dissembled my feelings, and merely told him 
that if he made one step towards me I would, 
after that speech, put him to death on the spot. 
We had a set of excellent printed rules on board, 
amongst which was one declaring that if any 
passenger's conduct was offensive to the cap- 
tain or to the other passengers, he should be 
immediately put on shore, and I determined to 
require of the captain to enforce that rule in 
this case. The other passengers made no re- 
mark upon his conduct, except M. Barraque, 
who went on deck and spoke to the captain, 
and told him what he thought it was his duty 
to do. Mr. T******** and myself were of 
opinion that he would be more influenced by 
the interference of a planter upon whom he oc- 
casionally depended for freight, than by my 
representations, and I therefore said nothing, 
relying upon the captain's good sense, of whose 
vigilance in matters that related to his duty we 
had had many proofs. In the evening this 
young brute became so beastly drunk, that he 
jay dpwn in a berth belonging to one of the oth- 
er passengers and vomited upon his clothes. 
The captam, on hearing of this, came down into 
the cabin to speak to him, but he was too drunk 
to understand what was said to him, and the 
affair was left until morning. When morning 
arrived I required of the captain an immediate 
compliance with the rule, and this he frankly 
admitted he was bound to do, but said there 
were particular circumstances, known only to 
himself, which prevented his doing it ; he con- 
cluded by saying that he would take such pre- 
cautions as would prevent my being exposed to 
his insolence again. Thus situated, I had no 
alternative but to remain on board and see if 
the captain would restrain him by his authority, 
or go on shore myself and remain in the wilder- 
ness perhaps two or three weeks before another 
steamer should offer. This being the most in- 
convenient of the two, I determined to wait 
awhile ; and in /fact the fellow, in consequence 



of the captain's orders to give him nothing to 
drink, was quieter after this. It appeared from 
what the engineer told me, that this youth was 
a relative of one of the owners of the boat, and 
was going to the gallows so fast, that he had 
put him under the captain's care as a last effort 
to keep him from immediate destruction, with 
injunctions not to let him go ashore at all. 

During this day we made about 30 miles, 
stopping at two or three plantations to take in 
cotton, and mooring the steamer as soon as night 
set in ; for the precarious nature of the naviga- 
tion renders it exceedingly dangerous and al- 
most impossible to descend the Arkansas when 
the river is as low as at this time, except by 
day-light. Notwithstanding the greatest atten- 
tion on the part of the captain we frequently 
grounded, and we often had to stop the engine 
to permit the boat to glide gently over the trees 
that lay beneath the water. On the 28th we 
grounded in a place from which we were unable 
to extricate the steamer until towards evening, 
and only made twenty miles during the day. In 
the morning, the steamer having to take in some 
cotton, and finding we were ordy about three 
miles from the ancient French settlement of 
" Poste d'Arkansas," Mr. T*****-** and my- 
self landed and walked to it through woods fill- 
ed with lofty cotton-wood {Popidus momUfera) 
trees, with an undergrowth in many places of 
white dog-wood ( Corww* a/ia) and red bud (Cer- 
cis Canadensis). This place, which is on the 
left bank of the Arkansas, is situated on the 
edge of an extensive prairie, and consists of a 
few straggling houses, principally occupied by 
some descendants of the ancient French settlers, 
who live in the comfortless way that the same 
class does at Carondelet. The great man of the 
place is a Monsieur Notrebe, a French emigrant, 
who is said to have accumulated a considerable 
fortune here. His house appears to be a com- 
fortable one, and has a store attached to it, 
where the principal business of this part of the 
country is transacted. Notrebe preceded M. Bar- 
raque in Arkansas, and also married a Creole 
with Indian blood in her veins. Cultivating cot- 
ton himself, advancing money to other planters 
to carry on their business with, upon condition 
of taking their crops when gathered at a given 
price, and taking skins and peltry of every kind 
in payment of goods obtained at his store — of 
which whiskey forms no small item — he has 
contrived to secure a monopoly of almost all the 
business of the country, and after a vigorous 
struggle has compelled all his competitors to 
withdraw from the trade. In addition to the 
tenements inhabited by Frenchmen, there are 
two miserable taverns kept by Americans, where 
everything is upon the most sordid scale. 

Nature assumes a somewhat different appear- 
ance at this place, and we were pleased with it 
on our arrival, being somewhat relieved from 
that sense of wearine.ss with which an unceasing 
contemplation of endless forests and cane-brakes 
oppresses the mind The banks of the river, 
which are about eighty feet high here, are crum- 
bling down with a rapidity that must, more or 
less, attract the attention of the settlers and 
somewhat alarm them ; the descending floods 
undermining them on one hand, whilst the banks, 
saturated with the land-springs and superficial 
waters tending to the river, become at length 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



135 



■ton heavy, lose their adhesion, and are precipi- 
tated in immense masses to the bottom. I'he 
Arkansas forms a beautiful sweep for two or 
three miles, where the settlement is, and expo- 
ses a deep section of the party-coloured banks, 
in which I observed a seam of calcareous mat- 
ter towards the bottom of the left bank, compo- 
sed of broken-down shells, but it was only al)out 
three inches thick. I examined the neighbour- 
hood for several miles, and found the country a 
dead flat, with a few stunted trees growing here 
and there, and the land so cut up by broad chan- 
nels or gullies made by the rain, that even with- 
in :?00 yards of the settlement they had been 
<jl)liged to construct bridges over some of them. 
There is a track on the bank of the river which 
I followed some distance, until it stopped at a 
precipice of near 100 feet high, with a wide 
chasm, on my left, the solid contents of the 
whole having, as I was informed, fallen into the 
water within the last twelve months. All this 
might have been avoided if they had, in the first 
instance, constructed proper passages for the 
atmospheric waters to pass off. 

We remained at this place the whole day ta- 
king in M. Notrebe's bales of cotton, many of 
which we were obliged to leave behind, having 
no room for them : indeed the bales were so 
piled up on the decks and paddle-boxes of the 
steamer, that she looked from the shore like an 
immense collection of bales of cotton, amongst 
which some pieces of machinery had been stuck ; 
hut although, to my inexperienced eye, she was 
too deeply laden, I afterwards found that she 
was in good trim, and in the open stream made 
her eight and ten knots an hour. We were de- 
tained until ten o'clock the next morning (Dec. 
30th), when we started for Montgomery's, the 
noted gambler's, at the mouth of White River, 
distant from here about 45 miles. 



CHAPTER, XXXVIII. 

The Steamer boarded by Swindlers — Pandemonium afloat 
—Day and Night Org-ies— A Mysterious Lady— Printed 
Rules to decoy Passengers— White River — Reach the 
Mississippi —Arrive at Vicksburg — Mr. Vick and his 
brother Gentlemen— Worse and worse— Compliments to 
the Captain of a Steamer by the Gentry of Vicksburg — A 
View of the Grand Gulf— Reach Natchez— A happy De- 
liverance of the Swindlers— Judge Lynch in the State of 
Mississippi — Arrive at New Orleans. 

Upon embarking on board of this steamer I 
was certainly pleased with the prospect that 
presented itself of enjoying some repose and 
comfort after the privations and fatigues I had 
endured ; but never was traveller more mis- 
taken in his anticipations ! The vexatious con- 
duct of the drunken youth had made a serious 
innovation upon the slight degree of personal 
comfort to be obtained in such a place, but I had 
not the slightest conception that that incident 
would be entirely thrown into tlie shade by 
others a thousand times more offensive, and 
that, from the moment of our departure from the 
post of Arkansas until our arrival at New Or- 
leans, I was destined to a series of brutal an- 
noyances that extinguisiied every hope of re- 
pose, or a chance of preserving even the decen- 
cies of existence. 

I had been told at the post of Arkansas that 
en passengers were waiting to come on board, 



and that several of them were notorious swin- 
dlers and gamblers, who, whilst in Arkansas, 
lived by the most desperate cheating and bully- 
ing, and who skulked about alternately betwixt 
Liitle Rock, Natchez, and New Orleans, in 
search of any plunder that violent and base 
means could bring into their hands. Some of 
their names were familiar to me, having heard 
them frequently spoken of at Little Rock as 
scoundrels of the worst class. From the mo- 
ment I heard they were coming on hoard as 
passengers I predicted to Mr. T*******^* that 
every hope of comfort was at an end. But I 
had also been told that two American officers, a 
Captain D***** and a Lieut. C******— the lat- 
ter a gentleman entrusted with the construction 
of the military road in Arkansas— were also 
coming on board ; and I counted upon them as 
persons who would be, by the force of educa- 
tion and a consciousness of what was due to 
their rank as officers, on the side of decency at 
least, if not of correct manners ; and if those 
persons had passed through the national mili- 
tary academy at West Point, or had served un- 
der the respectable chief* of the Topographical 
Bureau at Washington, I should not have been 
as grievously disappointed as it was my fate to 
be. It was true I had heard that these officers 
had been passing ten days with these scoundrels 
at a low tavern at this place, in the unrestrain- 
ed indulgence of every vicious extravagance, 
night and day, and that they were the familiar 
intimates of these notorious swindlers. Never- 
theless, believing that there must be some ex- 
aggeration in this, I continued to look forward 
with satisfaction to having them for fellow pas- 
sengers, confident that they would be our allies 
against any gross encroachments of the others. 

Very soon after I had retired to the steamer 
at sunset, the whole clique came on board, and 
the effect produced on us was something like 
that which would be made upon passengers in 
a peaceful vessel forcibly boarded by pirates of 
the most desperate character, whose manners 
seemed to be what they aspired to imitate. 
Rushing into the cabin, all but red-hot with 
whiskey, they crowded round the stove and ex- 
cluded all the old passengers from it as much as 
if they had no right whatever to be in the cabin. 
Putting on a determined bullying air of doing 
what they pleased because they were the majori- 
ty, and armed with pistols and knives, expressly 
made for cutting and stabbing, eight inches long 
and an inch and a half broad ; noise, confusion, 
spitting, smoking, cursing and swearing, drawn 
from the most remorseless pages of blasphemy, 
commenced and prevailed from the moment of 
this evasion. I was satisfied at once that all 
resistance would he vain, and that even remon- 
strance might lead to murder ; for a sickly old 
man in the cabin happening to say to one of 
them that there was so much smoke he could 
hardly breathe, the fellow immediately said, " If 
any man tells me he don't like my smoking I'll 
put a knife into him" 

As soon as supper was over they all went to 
gamblimg, during which, at every turn of the 
cards, imprecations and blasphemies of the 
most revolting kind were loudly vociferated. 
Observing them from a distance where Mr. 



Colonel Abert. 



136 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



T******** and myself were seated, I perceived 
that one of them was the wretched looking fellow 
I had seen at Hignite's, o-n my way to Texas, 
who went by the name of Smith, and that his 
keeper iNlr. Tunstall was with him. The most 
blasphemous fellows .Tiongst them were two 
men of the names of Kt-otor and Wilson. This 
Rector at that time held a commission under the 
natmnal government as Marshal for the terri- 
tory of Arkansas, was a man of mean stature, 
low and sottish in his manners, and as corrupt 
and reckless as it was possible for human being 
to be. The man named Wilson was a suttler 
from cantonment Gibson, a mUitary post about 
250 miles up the Arkansas ; he had a remark- 
able depression at the bottom of his forehead ; 
and from this sinus his nose rising with a sud- 
den spring, gave a fural expression to his face 
that exactly resembled the portrait of the wick- 
ed apprentice in Hogarth. The rubric on his 
countenance too was a faithful register of the 
numerous journeys the whiskey bottle had made 
to his proboscis. 

If the Marshal, Mr. Rector, was the most con- 
stant blasphemer, the suttler was the most em- 
phatic one. It was Mr. Rector's invariable 
custom, when the cards did not turn up to please 
him, to express a fervent wish that "his sou! 

might be sent to ," whilst Mr. Wilson never 

neglected a favourable opportunity of hoping 
that his own might be kept there to a thousand 
eternities. This was the language we were 
compelled to listen to morning, noon, and night, 
without remission, whenever we were in the 
cabin. In the morning, as soon as day broke, 
they began by drinking brandy and gin with 
sugar in it, without any water, and after break- 
fast they iniiiiediaiely went to gambling, smo- 
king, spitting, blaspheming, and drinking for the 
rest of the day. Dinner interrupted their orgies 
for a while, but only for a short lime, and after 
supper these wretches, maddened with the in- 
flaming and impure liquors they swallowed, fill- 
ed the cabin with an infernal vociferation of 
curses, and a perfect pestilence of smoking and 
spitting in every direction. Lieut. C****** oc- 
casionally exchanged a few words with me, and 
appeared to be restrained by my presence; he 
never sat down to play, but was upon the most 
intimate terms with the worst of these black- 
guards, and drank very freely with them. Capt. 
D*****, with whom I never exchanged a word, 
was a gentlemanly-looking youth, and was not 
vulgar and coarse like the others, but I never 
saw a young man so infatuated with play, be- 
ing always the first to go to the gambling table 
and the last to quit it. Such was his passion 
for gambling that it overcame everything like 
decent respect for the feelings and comfort of 
the other passengers; and one night, after the 
others had become too drunk and tired to sit up, 
I was kept awake by his silting up with Rector 
and continuing to play at high, low, jack, and 
the game, until a very late hour in the morning. 
Perhaps, however, the most remarkable char- 
acter anionirsi them was Smith, the New Eng- 
lander, with his pale dough face, every feature 
of which was a proclamation of bully, sneak, 
and scoundrel. I never before saw in the 
countenance of any man such incontrovertible 
evidences of a fallen nature. It was this fel- 
low that had charge of the materials for gam- 



bling, and who spread the faro table out the first 
evening of their coining on board, in hopes ta 
lure some of tlie passengers ; none of whom, 
however, approached table except the drunken 
youth who had behaved so ill on a previous oc- 
casion, and they never asked him to play, prob- 
ably knowing that he had no money. 

Having found no birds to pluck on board, they 
were eompelled to play against each other, al- 
ways quarrelling in the most violent manner, 
and using the most atrocious menaces : it Was 
always known when these quarrels were not 
made up, by the parties appearing the next time 
at the gambling-table with their Bowie-knives 
near them. In various travels in almost every 
part of the world I never saw such a coUectioa • 
of unblushing, low, degraded scoundrels, and I 
became at length so unhappy as often to think 
of being set on shore and taking a chance fate- 
in the wild cane-brakes, rather than have my 
senses continually polluted with scenes that had 
every appearance of lasting until the end of the- 
voyage : but for the comfort I derived from the 
society of Mr. T********, who was as misera- 
ble as myself, and who relied altogether upon- 
me to set a good countenance upon the whole 
matter, I certainly should have executed my in- 
tention. 

Above the cabin where these scenes were 
enacted was a smaller one called the Ladies* 
Cabin, and when I found what sort of a set we- 
had got, I applied to the steward to give Mr. 
T******** and myself berths there ; but he in- 
formed us this could not he done, because Capt. 
D*****'s sister was there, having come on board 
with him at the post. She might be his sister 
for aught I ever learnt to the contrary, but 
whatever she was she kept very close, for she 
never appeared either below or upon deck. My 
remonstrances with the captain produced no 
effect whatever ; when I talked to him about 
his printed rules, he plainly told me that he did 
not pretend to execute them ; that what I com- 
plained of were the customs and manners of the 
country, and that if he pretended to enforce the' 
rules he should never get another passenger, 
adding, that one of the rules left it to a majori- 
ty of the passengers to form their own by-laws 
for the government of the cabin. 

On recurring to tiiern I found it was so, the 
terms being that by-laws were to be so made, 
" provided they were in conformity with the 
police of the boat." As there was no police ia 
the boat, it was evident the printed rules were 
nothing but a bait to catch passengers with, and 
1 never spoke to him on the subject again. I 
had heard many stories of gangs of scoundrels 
who wandered about from New Orleans to 
Natchez, Vicksburg, and Little Rock, with no 
baggage but broad, sharp butcher knives, loaded 
pistols, and gambling apparatus, and I was now 
compelled to witness the proceedings of such, 
ruffians. These would have been less intolera- 
ble if the two U. S. officers had kept aloof from 
these fellows and formed a little society with 
us, as I reasonably expected they would do 
when I first heard they were coming on hoard ; 
but Capt. D***** never once offered either Mr. 
T******** or myself the least civility, or ex- 
changed a word with us ; and although that 
was not the case with Lieut. C******, yet an 
incident took place very early in the voyage 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



is: 



which convinced nne we had nothing to expect 
from hiin. Wilson, the man with the nose, 
was standing with his hack to the stove before 
breakfast, unrestrainedly indulging in incohe- 
rent curses about some one he had quarrelled 
with, wiien Mr C****** in the most amiable 
manner put his hand inside of the ruthan's 
waistcoat, drew forth his stabbing knife, un- 
sheathed It, felt the edge as if with a connois- 
seur's linger and thumb, and was lavish in its 
praise. Such were the unvarying scenes which 
were re-enacted for the many days we were 
shut up in the steamer with these villains, and 
with this statement pf them I return to the 
topographical details of the voyage. 

We had a favourable run down the river the 
day of our departure from the post of Arkansas, 
and in the afternoon turned into what is called 
the Ctil-off, a natural passage or canal which 
connects the Arkansas with the waters of White 
River. Itis more convenient to take this Cut- 
off to reach the Mississippi, as it is a clear ca- 
nal-like navigation about 250 feet broad, with- 
out any snags or sawyers. To the right lies a 
considerable island cut off from the main land, 
upon which we saw two miserable cabins, on 
each side of which lofty canes about 25 feet 
high were growing. There was no current in 
this Cut-off, the Arkansas rushing past it at the 
south end, and White River at the north end, 
damming up its waters as if it were a millpond ; 
we therefore soon got into the current of White 
River itself, which is here a powerful stream, 
and at night, to our great joy, we reached the 
Mississippi River, and brought up for a short 
time at Montgomery's, a notorious place. 

We were now at length on a great fluviatile 
highway where other steamers were occasion- 
ally to be met, and Mr. T******** and myself 
comforted ourselves with the belief that we 
should have many opportunities of abandoning 
the wretches we were compelled to live wiiii 
and exchange their detested society for any 
other, since none could be more irksome to us. 
The Mississippi at this point appeared to be 
about three-quarters of a mile wide, was a fine 
open stream without sandbars and snags, along 
which we could freely proceed all night without 
danger: disgusted as we were, we rejoiced at 
our escape from the contracted banks and end- 
less forests of the .Arkansas, the very air of 
which seemed to breathe of corruption. I rose 
early in the morning and hastened on deck to 
look at the shores ; we had the state of Missis- 
sippi on our left, and the territory of Arkansas 
on our right. 

The water of the river was of a grey, muddy 
colour, not red like that of the Arkansas, but 
the banks, like those of this last stream, were 
low, and were constantly crumbling and wear- 
ing away, carrying along with them trees and 
masses of cane-brake. Everything which de- 
pended upon the action of the river was the 
same as in the one we had just left, although 
upon a larger scale ; there was the same ser- 
pentine course, the same reaches, but more ex- 
tensive, and the same sand-bars. In the course 
of the day we passed Columbia, the county- 
town of the county of Chicot in Arkansas, said 
to be the most fertile part of the whole territory. 
After passing a most horrible night, kept awake 
by the tobacco and imprecations of the drunken 
■ S 



gamblers, we arrived early in the morning of 
January 1st at Vicksburg, and greatly disap- 
|)ointed were we not to find any steamer there 
bound to New Orleans. Here we remained 
several hours, and thought of going to a tavern 
to wait fi)r a steamer, for which purpose we en- 
tered the town with the intention of looking out 
fi)r lodgings. 

Vicksburg is a modern settlement situated ori 
the side of a hill very much abraded and cut up 
into gullies by the rains. The land rises about 
200 feet above the Mississippi, but sinks again- 
very soon to the east, forming a sort of ridge 
which appears at intervals as far as Baton 
Rouge. On returning to the steamer we were 
informed that eight or ten gcntkmcii, some of 
whom were planters of great respectability, and 
amongst the rest, a Mr. Vick, after whom the- 
place was called, were coming on board with the 
intention of going to New Orleans. This de- 
termined us to continue on with the boat, con- 
ceiving that we should be too many for the ruf- 
fians in the cabin, and that the captain — who- 
was anxious to keep up a good understanding 
with the planters — would now interfere to keep 
some order there. But supper being over, and 
the faro-table spread as usual, what was my 
horror and astonishment at seeing these Missis- 
sippi gentlemen, with Ihe respectable Mr. Vick, 
sitting down to faro with these swindlers, and 
in the course of a very short time gambling, 
drinking, smoking, and blaspheming, just as des- 
perately as the worst of them ! The cabin be- 
came so full of tobacco smoke that it was im- 
possible for me to remain in it, so wrapping my- 
self up as warm as I could, I retreated to the 
deck to pass the night, Mr. T******** soon fol- 
lowing me ; there we met the captain, and told 
him we could not endure this any longer, and 
were desirous of being put on shore at the very 
first settlement we should reach by daylight. 
He said it would be best for us to go on shore' 
at Natchez, and that he really pitied us, but that 
he could not disoblige these planters, for that if 
he was to interfere with their amusements, they- 
would never ship any freight with him ; adding 
that the competition amongst the steamers was 
so great, that every man was obliged to look out 
for his own interests : as a proof that it was ne- 
cessary for him to act with some policy, he told 
us that a ca[)tain of his acquaintance having 
once put a disorderly fellow belonging to Vicks- 
burg on shore, had, when he stopped there on 
his return, been boarded by fifteen persons, arm- 
ed with knives and pistols, who proceeded to 
spit in his face, kick him, and treat him in the 
most savage manner. Some of these fifteen 
persons, he said, he thought were now on board. 
This I could readily believe, fi)r nothing could 
he more reckless or brutal than their conduct 
and conversation. They had escaped the re- 
straints which society imposed in the place they 
inhabited — if any such existed — and seemed de- 
termined to exhaust all the extravagances that 
brutality and profanity are capable of I shall 
never forget these specimens of gentlemen be- 
longing to the Stale of Mississippi. 

During the day, we passed Rockport or the 
Grand Gulf where the Mississippi pursues a 
broad straight channel for several miles, the riv- 
er having lost its serpentine character, and the 
shore assuming an unusual height, with pictu- 



138 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



resque hills here and there. Generally speaking 
there is an oppressive monotony in the appear- 
ance of the shores of this line river to the south, 
but the view here was sufficiently pleasing to in- 
duce me to sketch it. The sand has indurated 
and formed a rock, which in this universal al- 
luvial country furnishes an excuse for the name 
of the pretty little settlement of Rockport. Rod- 
ney, farther to the south, is huilt on a similar 
ridge, but the inhabitants have abandoned the 
upland for the low ground, finding this last less 
unhealthy. 

It was after midnight when we reached Natch- 
ez, where we had determined to land, and where 
we did not remain a long time, for we had hut 
a short time to make up our minds. The prin- 
cipal or upper town, where the planters reside, 
is some distance from the shore, and we could 
not reach it that night without leaving our lug- 
gage at the low town by the water's edge : but 
the engineer of the steamer, in whom I placed 
some confidence, had assured me that this low 
town was a notorious rendezvous for the very 
■worst desperadoes in the country, more infa- 
mous — if possible — even than the party we had 
on board, and that if we left anything there we 
should never see it again ; whdst if we staid 
there all night we should expose ourselves both 
to robbery and murder, many persons having 
been traced to that place, without ever having 
been further heard of Whilst I was pondering 
upon this obvious difficulty I saw all the fellows 
■we took in at the post of Arkansas come upon 
<Ieck as if they were about to leave the steamer, 
and being informed by the steward that the 
whole yarty, tulli qiianli, officers, mysterious 
lady and all, were going no farther, I determin- 
ed to remain. Here then we had the satisfac- 
tion to see these degraded wretches leave the 
boat, and a short time after to know that we 
were on the bosom of the Mississippi without 
them.* The captain, too, seemed to be glad to 



* A few months a&erwards the outrageous conduct of 
this gang of lawless men drew upon some of them a sum- 
mary and tragical fate ; and the incident is so highly char- 
acteristic of the manners of the part of the country it con- 
cerns, that it deserves to be related. 

Encouraged by the acquaintances they had formed on 
board of the steamer, some of these wretches removed to 
Vicksburg and established gambling tables at various low 
taverns, to which they decoyed the young men of the place, 
and having plundered and debauched them, they at length 
became as depraved as themselves, and their constant asso- 
ciates. Emboldened by their numbers, and by the impunity 
which their desperate character appeared to invest them 
■with, they threw off all restraint, and by their constant 
drunkenness, and their crimes, rendered themselves objects 
of terror to the rest of the inhabitants ; occupying the streets 
in the day-time, armed with deadly weapons, and insulting 
every one that was obnoxious to them. This anarchy be- 
coming intolerable, the citizens were driven to combine 
against them, and a crisis was soon reached upon the occa- 
sion of a public dinner, at which one of these men having 
contrived to get admittance, interrupted the festivity, and 
struck an inhabitant who endeavoured to keep him in order. 
Upon this an uproar took place, which ended by his being 
turned into the street. This fellow, v/hn.se name was Cab- 
ler, now hastened to his confederates, and arming himself, 
returned with some of them to the public square, proclaim- 
ing aloud his intention to put lo death the individuals who 
Tiad been most forward in expelling him. At the square, 
bowever, he was met by the company he had insulted, and 
a small corps of volunteers, who had been dining with them 
—was seized, di.sarmed, and immediately taken to the woods. 
Tying him to a tree, they first proceeded to Lynch him in a 
severe manner, then tarred and feathered him, and peremp- 
torily ordered him to leave the place. 

The citizens being now roused, held a general meeting, 
and there passed a resolution that all these gamblers should 
leave the town in twenty-fc ur hours, and had it placarded 
on the walls On the morning succeeding to the stipulated 



1 be rid of them, and to have an opportunity of 
being civil to me, for he voluntarily offered to 

time, the inhabitants in great numbers, accompanied by the 
I volunteers, went to the haunts of the gamblers, and deputed 
a part of their number to seize all the faro and rouge et noir 
tables ; but on reaching a house occupied by a very desper- 
.ite fellow of the gang, named North, they found it garrison- 
ed by several of the most obnoxious of these scoundrels, all 
of them completely armed. The posse having surrounded 
the house and broken open a back door, a volley was fired 
from within, by which a Dr. Hugh S. Bodley, one of the 
most respected inhabitants of the place, was killed on the 
spot. The fire was instantly returned, and one of the gang 
wounded ; but the conflict was of short duration, for the as- 
sailants, enraged at the death of one whom they valued so 
much, stormed the place, and captured all who had not es- 
caped : there were five in number, amongst whom was 
Smith, the pale dough- faced New Englauder, who has been 
already alluded to as one of the gamblers on buard the 
steamer. 

Shriving time was not allowed to these miserable wretch- 
es ; a gallows was instantly erected, and the extraordinary 
spectacle exhibited of the whole population of a town, head- 
ed by the leading inhabitants, many of whom were magis- 
trates, conducting five men to execution — one of whom was 
desperately wounded — before any preliminary step whatever 
had been taken to bring them to a trial by the laws of their 
countiy. Such are the excesses to which the people of these 
climes abandon themselves when their passions are roused 
— never stopping to consider consequences, but madly sacri- 
ficing human life, and incurring the gravest responsiliilities, 
upon the impulse of the moment ! 

The person from whom 1 had these particulars— which 
were to a great extent confirmed by the public journals at 
the tiine^told me that the scene which preceded the death 
of these men baflHed all description. A tumultuous mob, 
showing a savage impatience to hurry on the execution, filled 
the air with execrations ; whilst the captured and crest- 
fallen gamblers, preceded by a drunken black fiddler, were 
reluctantly dragged to the fatal tree by the volunteers and 
citizens. The names of these doomed wretches were North, 
Hallums, Smith, Dutch Bill, and M'Call ; some of whom 
were dogged and malignant to the last : Smith, however, 
was thoroughly terror-stricken ; he wept, he implored, he 
cried aloud for mercy, and evinced the most abject despair : 
vain were these appeals, for the instant the gallows was 
ready, they were all launched into eternity, including the 
wounded man. It was the next morning before their bodies 
were cut down and buried together in a ditch. 

This transaction passed over without .any subsequent in- 
quiry by the constituted authorities. The murdered men 
were known to be scoundrclsof the worst kind, and received 
little or no sympathy: out of the State of iMississippi the 
act was far from being approved of, although it was hoped 
it might check the profligate career of a set of individuals 
whose vicious lives were a perpetual defiance to society. 
But in the State of Mississippi, public opinion unanimously 
sustained the conduct of the citizens of Vicksburg, who 
themselves seem— after the transaction, and when their 
blood must have been cool — to have been quite unconscious 
of having done anything that was inconsistent either with 
the dictates of humanity or of justice ; for, in an elaborate 
justification of their ferocious conduct, which was subse- 
quently drawn up in that town and published, there is the 
following extraordinary passage, which not only invites the 
other towns of the State to pursue the same barbarous sys- 
tem, tiut also admits that the most respectable inhabitants 
of Vicksburg participated in the proceedings of that mem- 
orable day, and were far from being dissatisfied with what 
they had done : — 

" Society may be compared to the elements, which, al 
though ' order is their first law,' can sometimes be purified 
orJi/ by a storm. Whatever, therefore, sickly sensibility or 
mawkish philanthropy may say against the course pursued 
by us, we hope that our citizens will not relax the code of 
punishment which they have enacted against this infamous, 
unprincipled, and baleful class of society ; and we invite 
Natchez, .lackson, Columbus, Warrenton, and all our sister 
towns throughout the State, in the name of our insulted 
laws, of offended virtue, and of slaughtered innocence, to 
aid us in exterminating this deep-rooted vice from our land. 
The revolution has been conducted here by the most respect- 
able citizens, heads of families, members of all classes, pro- 
fessions, and pursuits. None have been heard to utter a 
syllable of censure against either the act or the manner in 
which it was performed ; and so far as we know, public 
opinion, both in town and country, is decidedly in favour 
of the course pursued. We have never known the public 
so unanimous on any subject "' 

It will scarcely be credited that on the morning prece- 
ding this wholesale murder, a still more ferocious scene was 
enacting about forty miles from the same place, of which 
the particulars appeared in the newspapers of the day 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



139 



give Mr. T******** and myself berths in the 
ladies' cabin, now vacant, an offer we joyfully 
embraced, and from that moment never entered 
the lower cabin but to snatch a liasty meal 
The Vickshiirg iicnikmni, seeing we avoided 
their society, behaved as ill as they could wiicn 
we were present, trying to mock us when we 
were speaking French or German, merely to 
provoke ns into a quarrel ; but we had made up 
our minds to continue to bear their vulgarity, 
and not to lose our tempers, unless provoked by 
personal violence, in which case we had con- 
certed what to do, and told the captain of our 
intentions. They, either because he spoke to 
them, or that our coolness had its effect upon 
them, never dared to go so far. At the best we 
passed our time miserably, and were much de- 
tained by fogs. We passed Baton Range in the 
night time, and after daylight soon became 
fatigued with the monotony of sugar planta- 
tions succeeding to each other, the sight of 
which became as tedious as that of the forests 
and cane-brakes had been. In fact we were 
worn out with the horrid scenes we had gone 
through, and were sighing for an end to this 
painful voyage. At length, on Sunday morning 
the 4th of January, we reached the long crescent 
of shipping moored at the wharfs of New Or- 
leans, in one of the deep curvatures of the riv- 
er ; and going ashore amidst a crowd of ill- look- 
ing people working as steadily as if they had 
never heard of Sunday, and cursing and swear- 
ing in French and English, we proceeded to a 
Mons. Marty's, a countryman of Mr. T*******, 
and there took our lodgings. 



CHAPTER XXXIX. 

The Delta of the Mississippi— Shirtings of the Channel of 
the River — Formjition of new Innd at its mouth — Vi.sit 
the Cemeteries — Mode of contriving dry Graves — Pirati- 
cal-looking Population — Green Peas out of doors, Jan. 1 
— Literaiiire and the Sciences — New Orleans American- 
ised — Sunday Evening Meetings — Faro the principal 
business transacted in New Orleans — The Legislature 
in Session — Good Theatres. 

It is impossible for an observant traveller, 
accustomed to trace the effects produced by the 
action of such powerful streams as the Arkan- 
sas and Red River, both in their abrasive power 
and in the reproduction of the sedimentary mat- 
ter they bear along, not to be struck with those 
geological modifications established on the sur- 
face of the country by the combined efforts of 
all the tributaries of the Mississippi, as they are 



I exhibited in the Delta of that mighty i 
' immense fiuvialile deposit inav be t 



Upon this occrasion the charge brought against those whose 
lives were sacrificed, was a conspiracy to organize an insur- 
rection 01 the slaves. The following extract is made from 
one of the newspapers : — 

"Twenty miles from this place (Jackson in Madison 
county), a company of white men and negroes were detected 
before they did any mischief On Sundai/ last thei/ hung 
two steam doctors, one named Cotton and the other Saun- 
ders ; also seven negroes, without law or pospel, and from 
respectable authority we learn th;it there were two preach- 
ers and ten negroes to be hanged this day." 

It was in this same State of Mississippi that the doctrine 
of " Repudiation" first broke out, and was practised in the 
United States: a mode of fiscal purification of their e.v- 
chequer, almost as serious in its effects to the many confi- 
ding creditors it has ruined, as the stoniis with which tliev 
are accustomed to purify their moral condition are to the 
objects of their rengeance. Indeed, with slight alterations, 
the justificatory passages above quoted would seem to be 
equally applicable to both kinds of puriiication, whether 
applied to creditors or gamblers. 



river. This 
deposit may be described as 
[ an irregular triangle, formed by the line of the 
I Atchafalaya River from the poin^where it leaves 
t Red River to where it intersects the 29ih de- 
' gree of N. lat., continuing thence along that 
' parallel until all the mouths of the Mississippi 
: are passed, and completing the triangle by a line 
around Ohandeleur in St. Bernard, and north of 
Lake Ponlcharlrain to the 31st degree of N. lat. 
— an area of low alluvial country, comprehend- 
ing not less than 14,000 square miles, or some- 
thing more than one quarter of the area of Great 
Britain. West of the .\tchafalaya it is bounded 
by prairies and high pine lands. lying in Attaca- 
pas and Opelousas. two fine districts in the State 
of Louisiana, which are drained by streams that 
empty into the Atchafalaya and the Gulfof Mexi- 
co. To the east it is bnunded by lands similarly 
elevated, so that the whole area of 14,000 miles 
is to be considered as an ancient gulf into which 
the sedimentary matter brought down by the 
Mississippi and its tributaries has been deposit- 
ed ever since the ocean abandoned that immense 
basin in the upper country which is now drain- 
ed by them, and which comprehends at least 
one million of square miles. Although the 
breadth of the river, which is not often more 
than 1000 to 1500 yards wide, does not appear 
to correspond in the eyes of some persons with 
its power, it nevertheless con-ains an iminense 
volume; for its depth from the junction of the 
Arkansas is from 60 to 100 feet, until it ap- 
proaches the isthmus near the Gulf of Mexico, 
when it decreases very much. 

What has been already observed of the shift- 
ing character of the channels of the Arkansas 
and Red River applies equally to the Mississippi, 
traces of its deviation occurring in many places 
in the numerous lagoons and ancient beds, a 
principal one of which is perhaps on the line of 
the Amite River, a stream which connects the 
western end of Lake Pontchartrain with Iber- 
ville River and the present channel of the Mis- 
sissippi. When the Mississippi was limited to 
the north by this line, perhaps little or none of 
the area of land south of it appeared above the 
water, and the manner in which it has been 
gradually brought to the surface since the river 
deviated from an east to a south-east course, 
sufficiently appears from the narrow tongue-like 
isthmus which terminates in the mouths of the 
river a little north of the 29lh degree ; there the 
stream, constantly carrying the finer silt, de- 
posits it as it meets resistance from the waters 
of the Gulf of Mexico, and extends it annually 
into the gulf, whilst the breadth is enlarged at 
every inundation to await the growth of a future 
vegetation. 

This extraordinary exhibition of the constant 
formation of new land by a river bringing down 
the ruins of other territories was so vividly im- 
pressed upon my mind, that the very first thing 
I did after securing lodgings was to go to one 
of the public cemeteries, to see how they man- 
aged to inter their dead in a country so low and 
flat that the ground must be thoroughly saturated 
with water, and where, even in digging the foun- 
dations for houses, I was told it comes in inva- 
riably at a depth of from two to three feet. I 
found several new graves open ready to receive 
their tenants, all destined to repose in shells of 



140 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA 



well-masoned dry brickwork with wliich the 
graves were lined. Here, too, I collecied some 
fresh-water shells that had been ejected with 
the soil. Nothjng can be more fanciful than 
these cemeteries, which abound in bizarre struc- 
tures of painted brickwork placed over the 
graves, except the strange sentimental inscrip- 
tions upon them. Having gratified my curiosi- 
ty, I roamed until night through the old French 
part of the city, a duty confined town with nar- 
row unpaved streets, often impassable with mud, 
the pruicipal of which, Rue de Chartres, is only 
forty feet wide. 

Tlie population partook strongly of the char- 
acter of the latitude it was in, a medley of Span- 
iards, Brazilians, West Indians, French Creoles, 
and breeds of all these mixed up with the negro 
stock. I think I never met one person without 
a cigar in his mouth, and certainly, taking it al- 
together, I never saw such a piratical-looking 
population before. Dark, swarthy, thin, whis- 
kered, smoking, dirty, reckless-looking men ; 
and filthy, ragged, screaming negroes and mulat- 
toes, crowded even Rue de Chartres, where our 
lodgings were, and made it a very unpleasant 
quarter to be in. Notwithstanding it was Sun- 
day, the market was open, and there I saw- 
green peas (January 1st), salads, bouquets of 
roses, bananas from Havanna, and various good 
things that reminded me I was in the 30th de- 
gree of N. lat. 

In the American quarter the streets are wider, 
the houses better built, and substantial improve- 
ments are going on ; all tliis, no doubt, is well 
warranted by the commercial advantages w-hicli 
the place affords, the position of tlie city having 
rendered it the present emporium of this part 
of the world ; but it appeared evident to me 
that a man who had no business to transact 
would find no temptation to remain long, and 
would be entirely out of place here, for the only 
object men can have in coming to reside in a 
town so fatal to health and life in the summer, 
and so uncomfortable in the winter, must be the 
accumulation of money. That I am sure is 
every man's object who comes to New Orleans. 
Having stumbled upon a rather intelligent 
Frenchman — a " Fran^ais de France," as they 
call them here — who sold watch-keys and pam- 
phlets, and oddities of one kind or another, I 
asked him if there was a museum in the town, 
or any place which contained objects of natural 
history. His answer was, "Monsieur, on n'est 
pas ici pour la liiterature et les sciences, mais 
pour accrocher quelque chose, et puis filer le 
camp avant de mourir." 

The Levee is a wide sloping space between 
the town and the river, appropriated to the ship- 
ping business ; and on approaching the city, cer- 
tairdy the great number of ships and steamers 
ranged along the crescent which constitutes 
the harbour, produces a very striking spectacle. 
Perpendicular from the river there is a wide 
street called Canal Street, which separates the 
quarter where the Americans reside, from the 
old French town of La NouveUe Orleans, now 
Anglicised into New Orleans, a transition which 
is in rapid progress with everything ; for in less 
than fifty years the influence of all persons of 
the French race will be utterly extinguished in 
New Orleans and throughout Louisiana. Al- 
ready the French race is beginning to feel this, 



and to witness with bitter dissatisfaction the 
superiority of the Americans in everything that 
depends upon activity and industry. Within 
that period everything French here will be ab- 
sorbed into the other race. 

Tlie old city, wliich once was the centre of 
every sort of gayety and business, is already 
become gloomy and partially deserted. Rue de 
Chartres is less sx) because the shops are situated 
there, but in the other streets you only meet with 
a few anxious Jewish-looking faces going up 
and down the narrow streets that run at right 
ingles to the principal one, h)oking at you in- 
quiringly, as if they would willingly transact 
some sort of business with you ; but the well- 
dressed, gallant, careless, and cheerful Creole 
gentleman is no more seen. His day has al- 
ready passed by. Rue Royale is the next best 
street running parallel with Rue de Chartres, 
and is less disagreeable, because there are but 
few persons to be seen in it. A walk of a few 
minutes from Ibis brings you to the skirts of the 
city, where the cypress swamps, though filled 
with water, were more attractive to me thaa 
anything else, for the graceful palmetto was 
there in great profusion. 

One of the most agreeable things I found at 
New Orleans was an excellent table d'hote at 
Mr. Marty's, at which tliere was every day the 
greatest abundance of good things ; all the dish- 
es were admirably cooked, and a bottle of pretty 
fair claret was placed by each guest ; but in 
other respects the house was badly kept, all 
their cares seeming to be given to the table. 
There was no fireplace in the bed-rooms, a very 
bad fire in the public room, and I could obtain 
no place to write in. I received particular an- 
noyance, too, from the quick eaters, who always 
began to smoke ere I had half finished my re- 
past. There was a much better American hotel 
I was told, but as it was filled with commercial 
persons, I thought I should acquire more infor- 
mation from the guests at Marty's, none of 
whom were of the English race. 

On the evening of our arrival, Mr. T******** 
and myself walked to the Exchange, to see the 
newspapers, where we found a large but very 
dark room, full of people talking French and 
Spanish as fast as their cigars permitted. It re- 
minded me of some of the large coffee-hcjuses on 
the Continent at the period when the French first 
overran Italy, where I then happened to be, and 
where all seemed anxious by their conduct to 
show that the Lord's day should receive no trib- 
ute of respect from them. On our return to our 
lodgings we had more abundant proof that this 
was the order of the day at New Orleans ; for pas- 
sing a house with a small vestibule, a double door, 
and lights over the entrance, I took it for grant- 
ed at first — seeing various people slowly enter- 
ing — that this was a place of sectarian worship, 
and entered with the rest, taking my hat off at 
the second door. A great many devout people 
had already preceded me, hut all kept their hats 
on, the reason for which I perceived as soon as 
I got in, for on looking around I saw it was a 
public gambling room, with tables laid out for 
faro and other games. A crowd of the com- 
monest class of illdressed men, consisting of 
boat and raftsmen, were at a roulette table 
playing for quarters of dollars. We entered, 
two others, all within fifty steps of the Ex- 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



141 



change, and found the same scenes going on. 
The men that kept the tables were all Ame- 
ricans, of the same class with those I had been 
so long on board the steamer with. I was in- 
formed afterwards that a company of persons, 
almost entirely Americans, had collected a con- 
siderable fund for the purpose of carrying on 
gambling, and that they had branches at various 
places quite as systematically supported as if 
they were so many branches of banks, especially 
at such watering-places as the White Sulphur 
Springs in Virginia, where they had an esta- 
blishment. If we had visited any of the nu- 
merous gaming-tables where higher stakes are 
played for — some of which we were not without 
invitations to visit — I dare say I should have 
recognised Colonel Smith '• of the British army ;" 
but satisfied with what I had seen, and ima- 
gining the rest, I did not avail myself of the 
opportunity of witnessing the doings of " re- 
spectable people" at such places, which I dare 
say would have been amusing enough. I was 
told the houses were kept open day and night, 
the " gentlemen" who manage the tables being 
divided into " watches," those who are on duty 
all night lying abed all day, and vice versa. 
The houses here alluded to are frequented 
principally by Americans, but besides these 
there is an immense number kept by French- 
men, by Creoles, and Spaniards. A gentleman 
who had been long resident here told me that 
the gambling-houses had increased in number 
•with the commerce of the place ; and that al- 
though the commercial transactions of New 
Orleans since the increased cultivation of cot- 
ton had risen to a great amount, yet he believed 
that gambling was the principal branch of busi- 
ness carried on, for that the greater part of the 
persons who came here from the West Indies, 
from South America, and from Mexico, came 
to indulge in this their favourite propensity. 

I was so fortunate on my arrival^ as to find 
the legislature of Louisiana in session. The 
legislative rooms were small, but sufficiently 
commodious for the limited number of mem- 
bers who are convened. Business is trans- 
acted in both the French and English tongues. 
Monsieur Pitot, a clerk in one of the houses, is 
said to he a person who has acquired an extra- 
ordinary facility of translating the speeches of 
members from one language to the other, being 
able to furnish immediately, for the use of those 
who do not understand English, a version of an 
American speech with such accuracy as to give 
perfect satisfaction. I did not learn whether he 
is obliged to do this upon every occasion, but I 
imagine there must be a great many speeches 
delivered hardly worth listening to a second 
time by those who understand both languages. 
The members appeared to be a very respectable 
class of men in both houses, and were prin- 
cipally planters and lawyers. 

There are two theatres in the place, an Ame- 
rican and a French house, both of them exceed- 
ingly neat ; and I was very much struck with 
the unexpected decorum prevailing in them. 
Each has its parquet, so that you have a very 
comfortable stall during the peformance. The 
French theatre is in fact an opera-house, and 
appeared to be very well conducted : few ladies 
were there the evening I visited it, and those I 
saw were not remarkable for their ton or per- 



sonal beauty, of which I had heard a great deal, 
the Quadroon Creoles having been somewhat 
extravagantly described to me as females beau- 
tiful beyond all others, and very conspicuous for 
" une belle taille, et une gorge magnitique." I 
had occasion to see a good many of them during 
my stay, at a ball or two I had access to ; and 
certainly it must be allowed that tliey are " bien 
mises," and carry their i)ersons very well ; but 
in the lips and mouth, and in an unpleasing 
coarse texture of the skin, the negro blood 
shows itself very distinctly. 



CHAPTER XL 

Qundroon young Ladies, their hnrd fate — Liaisons of a 
Bal de Huciete — An amiable Father of several Families 
—Good Prospect for the Anglo-Episcopal Churcli— 
Spanish Cathedral — Depart from New Orleans — A 
Railroad— Embark in a Steamer for Mobile— A Storm 
—A Bishop on Bnaiil— Come to an anchor— The Bay 
and River of Mobile— Tokens of Commercial Activity 
— Beauty and Cleanliness of the town of Mobile — 
Spanish Creoles — The Bolero. 

The position of this unfortunate race of wo- 
men is a very anomalous one ; for Quadroons, 
who are the daughters of white men by half- 
blooded mothers, whatever be their private 
worth or personal charms, are forbidden by the 
laws to contract marriage with white men. A 
woman may be as fair as any European, and 
have no symptom of negro blood about her; 
she may have received a virtuous education, 
have been brought up with the greatest tender- 
ness, may possess various accomplishments, 
and may be eminently calculated to act the part 
of a faithful wife and tender mother , but if it 
can be proved that she has one drop of negro 
blood in her veins, the laws do not permit her 
to contract a marriage with a white man ; and 
as her children would be illegitimate, the inen 
do not contract marriages with them. Such a 
woman being over-educated for the males of 
her own caste, is therefore destined from her 
birth to be a mistress, and great pains are 
lavished upon her education, not to enable her 
to aspire to be a wife, but to give her those 
attractions which a keeper requires. 

The Quadroon balls are places to which these 
young creatures are taken as soon as they have 
reached womanhood, and there they show their 
accomplishments in dancing and conversation 
to the white men, who alone frequent these 
places. When one of them attracts the atten- 
tion of an admirer, and he is desirous of form- 
ing a liaison with her, he makes a bargain with 
the mother, agrees to pay her a sum of money, 
perhaps 2000 dollars, or some sum in propor- 
tion to her merits, as a fund upon which she 
may retire when the liaison terminates. She is 
now called " une placee ;" those of her caste 
who are her intimate friends give her fetes, and 
the lover prepares " un joli appartement ineu- 
ble." With the sole exception of "going to 
church," matters are conducted very much as 
if a marriage had been celebrated ; the lady is 
removed to her establishment, has her little 
coteries of female friends, frequents their " Bals 
de Societe," and brings up sons to be rejected 
by the society where the father finds his equals, 
with daughters to be educated for the Quadroon 
balls, and destined to pursue the same career 



142 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



which the mother has done. Of course it fre- 
quently happens that the men get tired of them 
and form new liaisons ; when this happens they 
return to their mother or fall back upon the 
fund provided for ihem in that case; and in 
some instances I was informed that various fa- 
milies of daughters by the same father appear 
at the Quadroon ball on the very evenings when 
their legitimate brother is present for the pur- 
pose of following the example of his worthy 
Papa. 

A very amusing anecdote, illustrative of this 
state of society, was related to me by a person 
who had been a resident here a great many 
years. On his first arival in New Orleans, be- 
fore it had become such a bnstling place as it 
is now, and when the French population had 
rather the dcssus, he presented a letter of intro- 
ducflon to a " habitant" of great respectability, 
by wliom he was politely r.eceived, and invited 
to dine €11 f ami Ik the same day. Nobody was 
present at the dinner but the wife of Monsieur 

C , an agreeable and well educated Creole 

lady, a native of the place, and three of their 

children. He found Monsieur C a lively 

agreeable Frenchman, full of bonhommic, and re- 
ceived a great deal of pleasant and useful in- 
formation from him. Happening amongst other 
questions to ask him how many children he 

had, Monsieur C gave him the following 

account of his domestic relations : — 

" Combien d'enfants, Monsieur 1 Ah ! voyons 
un peu, si on pourrait vous dire, Ceia ! Nous 
avons d'abord, oui, nous avons qiiatre nes a la 
Rue Royale, puis Irois en haut la de la Rue de 
Chartres ; il y a encore les deux Montbrillons, 
mon fils qui est au siicrier, et puis les trnis 
petits que vous voyez. Voila le bout du compte, 
a ce que je pense ; n'est ce pas, ma cherel" 
patting the head of one of the children, and ad- 
dressing himself in the most confiding, affec- 
tionate way to Madame. 

It is evident that the future population of 
New Orleans is likely to afford a rare specimen 
of the form society can be made to take in a 
semi-tropical climate, where the passions act 
unrestrainedly, and where money is the esta- 
blished religion of the country. 

I was gratified however to find that the 
Anglo-episcopal church was raising its head 
here ; at present there is but one episcopal con- 
gregation, but I should imagine its members to 
be zealous and spirited, for I was shown a very 
handsome design of a church which they are 
about building ; and a Protestant clergyman in- 
formed me that a project is on foot to put the 
States of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama 
under one Protestant episcopal diocese. Men 
of liberal education and correct lives in the 
United Stales seem naturally to fall into the 
bosom of the episcopal church, for there they 
find that attractive order of worship and steadi- 
ness of purpose which so powerfully encourage 
them to persevere in that purity of life which 
generally distinguishes individuals of their class. 

The only curious specimen of architecture 
here, with the excepticm of the old-fashioned 
French one-story houses with windows reach- 
ing to the ground, is the old Spanish cathedral, 
in one of the public squares in the old town, 
built somewhat in the Morisco style. 

Having gratified my curiositv until I had not 



the slightest desire left to remain an hour long 
er, I took leave of New Orleans — a city where 
all agree in the worship of mammon, and where 
the undertaker looks with as much periodical 
anxiety to the season of his harvest as the spec- 
ulator in cotton does to his. Starting for Lake 
Pontchartrain the 7th January, 1835, by a well- 
constructed railroad of five miles which they 
have laid in the swamp, we made the distance 
in about fifteen minutes, and embarked on board 
the steamer Otto. Lake Pontchartrain is a line 
arm of the sea which communicates with Lake 
Borgne, a bay of the Gulf of Mexico, by a chan- 
nel called Rigolet, which is about half a mile 
wide, and distant twenty-seven miles from New 
Orleans. We had scarce made five miles when 
the wind blew a gale a-head, and the weather 
came on very stormy, with heavy rains : this 
retarded our voyage, and made us uncomforta- 
ble. Our fellow-passengers however were of a 
much better kind than those on board the Lit- 
tle Rock steamer, and sick as I was I felt com- 
paratively happy. From the Rigolets we coast- 
ed along the low shores of the States of Mis- 
sissippi and Alabama, inside of a number of 
small islands that separate St. Catharine's 
Sound from the Gulf, the distance to the en- 
trance of the Bay of Mobile being about 115 
miles. 

The sea was very high in the Gulf of Mexico, 
and as cross and troublesome as I have ever 
seen it almost in the Gulf of Lyons : we ship- 
ped a great deal of water, and some of the pas- 
sengers began to entertain apprehensions that 
the steamer would founder ; in fact if she had 
been as flimsy as many of those that ply upon 
the Mississippi, we should have stood very lit- 
tle chance of being saved. If we had had my 
old acquaintances the blaspheming gamblers on 
board, I should have been disposed to think 
that their imprecations had been heard, and 
that the day of reckoning had arrived ; but for- 
tunately one of our passengers was the Bishop 
of Connecticut, on a tour in the Southern States. 
Although the presence of this gentleman was 
very favourable to the preservation of decorum 
on board, the captain did not seem to consider 
him as a sufficient guarantee against the furi- 
ous storm we had to contend against, for in the 
night he bore up under the lee of an island, and 
came to an anchor until daybreak, to the great 
satisfaction of the timid and the indisposed. As 
we approached the entrance of Mobile Bay the 
wind lulled, the rain ceased, and a fine suimy 
sky appeared, so that the steamer becoming 
quiet we were all enabled to put our persons in 
some order, and take a look at each other as 
well as the boat. What I saw of this last con- 
vinced me that the captain had acted very pru- 
dently in coming to an anchor, and that our 
danger had been greater than I had apprehend<- 
ed. Generally speaking the weather is so sun- 
ny and mild in this part of the gulf, that almost 
any kind of boat is thought sufficient for the 
voyage, but it requires one of the slaunchest 
vessels to keep out in such a storm as we ex- 
perienced ; and if it had been so dark as to 
prevent our reaching an anchorage, we should 
probably have been driven upon some shoal and 
all perished. 

We had a fine run of thirty miles up the bay 
to .Mobile, which is built at the mouth of the 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



143 



river Mobile, a fine stream formed by the con- 
fluence of the Tombcckbee, that receives the 
Black Warrior from the north-east, and the riv- 
er Alabama, which gives its name to the State 
The Tombeci<bee, which is the north-west 
branch of the river Mobile, takes its rise up- 
wards ol 300 miles from the city of Mobile, and 
is navigable for the greater part of that distance, 
a circumstance which gives a great intrinsic 
value to the fertile soil through which it passes 
The Alabama, the north-east branch of the Mo- 
bile, takes its rise in the Cherokee country to- 
wards the south-western termination of the 
Alleghany belt, more than 400 miles from the 
city of Mobile, and is formed by various tributa- 
ries, such as the Cahawba, the Coosa, and the 
Tallapoosa. The serpentine course which these 
streams have assumed nearly doubles the length 
of their navigation. 

As we entered the mouth of the Bay of Mo- 
bile we saw between thirty and forty vessels 
riding at anchor below : this they are obliged to 
do on account of the extreme shallowness of 
water in the bay, occasioned by the River Mo- 
bile constantly depositing great quantities of 
silt, in the manner that is done by the Missis- 
si[)pi. Many of these vessels were three-mast- 
ed, and their number betokened great com- 
mercial activity at this point of export for the 
productive cotton-lands of the States of Mis- 
sissippi and Alabama. On reaching the city we 
also found the wharves crowded with steamers 
and vessels of small burden. The lower part 
of Mobile is built upon the shore on the right 
bank of the river, and the streets near to the 
water are dirty and narrow ; but the land im- 
mediately begins to rise by a gentle acclivity to 
a plateau ab<iut sixty feet from the level of the 
stream. What I had previously heard of Mobile 
was not very much in its favour, and what I had 
seen of the other towns in this climate had not 
raised my expectations. On reaching this pla- 
teau therefore, and observing its extent, I was 
surprised at the peculiar beauty of the place, 
for It consisted of streets well laid out at right 
angles, with excellent sidewalks, the streets 
between them being graduated and macadam- 
ised with the sea shells that are found in the 
greatest abundance on the shores of Lake Pon- 
ehartrain and other places, and in so perfect a 
manner as to form the most solid and the clean- 
est streets I ever have seen in any country. 
One of these streets, where the market is, is 
100 feel broad, and is finished in a very admira- 
ble style for a distance of more than two miles 
from the river. The buildings, too, are appro- 
priate to the beauty and width of the street, 
some of them bi-ing stately structures of brick, 
denoting opulence in the proprietors ; and in 
the pretty but more contracted streets that go 
off at right angles are numerous houses built 
of wood, neatly painted white, with large plots 
ol land attached to them, fenced in with paint- 
ed palings. 

.U every step I took I was more and more 
struck wiih the universal love of order, and the 
good taste which seemed to prevail. The ex- 
celletit example which Mobile has set to the 
oilier towns in these latitudes deserves more 
praise than it appears to have received. I did 
noi even suspect existence anywhere of so many 
wise precautions to disarm the Yellow Fever of 



its malignity, which, though now much mitiga- 
ted, has often been so fatal to the citizens of the 
place. Beyond the houses are extensive sandy 
plains covered with pine-trees, and a thick un- 
derwood of evergreens, consisting of Ilex cas- 
sinc loaded with its bright red berries, juniper, 
and other plants. Many of the citizens have 
built little villas in these healthy plains, to 
which they retire both to avoid the extreme 
heat of the summer and the yellow fever. The 
population at this time is said to be upwards of 
6000, and from its great advantages as a com- 
mercial position, its beauty, and comparative 
salubrity, it is probable that it will increase ra- 
pidly. On the score of health it is, as a resi- 
dence, infinitely to be preferred to New Orleans, 
for that city stands in the midst of a swamp, 
which is a magazine of malaria that explodes 
every autumn, whilst Mobile has the sea-air in 
front, and a dry arenaceous back country, where 
vegetable decomposition is comparatively in- 
noxious. But the good sense of the citizens, 
which has secured and improved all its natural 
advantages, must soon acquire for this pretty 
town the excellent reputation which it deserves. 

While rambling about I was attracted by the 
sound of a guitar coming from a very old-fash- 
ioned looking house in one of the smaller streets, 
accompanied by some very fine voices, which 
seemed to infuse life and spirits to many cheer- 
ful persons, some of whom, I knew by the sound 
of their steps, and by the time they kept, were 
dancing a bolero. Mobile was first colonised, 
by the Spaniaids, and those individuals of that 
race who are still here now stand in the same 
relation to the Americans that the French in 
Louisiana do. Curious to see some of the 
Spanish Creoles, I opened the door gently and 
entered. Two Spaniards were dancing with 
much grace and national feeling, whilst about 
a dozen men and women ware looking on and 
singing. I had scarce entered when the mas- 
ter of the house came to me to inform me, I 
suppose, that it was a private house ; but I an- 
ticipated him by telling him I was a stranger, 
and passionately fond of the bolero. He smiled 
and said I was welcome, so I remained near aii 
hour, highly delighted, for I had not witnessed 
anything of the kind for a great many years. 

On my return at night to the hotel where I 
had taken my luggage, I learnt that a steamer, 
called the Chippewa, would leave Mobile a little 
alter midnight for Wetuinpka, about 350 miles 
up the Alabama and Coosa. Finding nothing 
to induce me to prolong my stay at Mobile until 
a steamer should offer for the Appalachicola- 
River, which I was desirous of going up, I de- 
termined to go and look at this steamer, and 
get some information of the character of the 
passengers. There are no towns of importance 
on either of those rivers to attract travelling 
gamblers, but the Appalachicola is perhaps the 
least frequented by them, which was one of my 
reasons for prefering it. Finding the steamer, 
however, a pretty fair one, and receiving a sat- 
isfactory account as to the rest, I engaged pas- 
sages for my companion and myself, and trans- 
ferring our luggage on board, the steamer now 
became our hotel, and we took possession of 
our respective berths, or state-rooms as they are 
called. 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



CHAPTER XLI. 
Embark in .1 Steamer, and ascend the Mobile and Alaba- 
buma— Tertiary deposits at Fort Claiborne — Great fer- 
tility of the State of Alabama— Aptitude of the Greek 
Indians for labour — Reatli Montgomery, in Alabama — 
Filthiness of the •' principal" Hotel — Engage a carriage 
to cross the Indian Territory —Country inundated — Cross 
the Oakfuskee and enter the Creek Nation. 
We got away some time after midnight, and 
going upon deck at break of day, I found we 
■were in the Mobile River. It resembled the 
Arkansas in the flatness of surface of the coun- 
try, but with the material exception that the 
river being unusually high, we could see no 
banks whatever to it ; the forest-trees and the 
cane-brakes, which were very abundant and 
thick, being, as far as we could see, about ten 
feet under water from their roots upwards. 

About forty miles from Mobile we passed the 
junction of the Tombeckbee and Alabama, the 
breadth of this last being here about 150 yards. 
During the whole of this day the country was 
under water, the vegetation standing in it in the 
greatest profusion. I was therefore not sur- 
prised to learn that the live oaks {Quercus scm- 
jtervirens), and all the other species of oaks 
found in these latitudes, which are periodically 
subject to this kind of inimdation, are not con- 
sidered sound timber. Towards evening the 
land began to rise, and tired with the monotony 
•of the scene, we were heartily glad to see tlie 
ground again. On reaching Fort Claiborne, 
distant from Mobile near 150 miles of serpentine 
Bavigation, I found th? bluffs were about 150 feet 
above the level of the river, and a short deten- 
tion enabled me to take a look at the beds of 
tertiary shells in the banks and make a collec- 
tion of some of them ; but as the fossils found 
in these deposits have l»een already collected, 
and probably will soon be accurately described, 
by that very modest and intelligent naturalist 
Mr. T. A. Conrad, who is decidedly the first au- 
thority amongst the fossil conch dogists of the 
United Stales, I omit any remarks respecting 
them for the present. Frort' hfuce to Praine 
Bluffs, the country rises to a still higher level, 
and live oaks and laurels of every kind abound, 
the trees being occasionally loaded with curtains 
of forest-moss {TilJandsia usnoidcs) hanging to 
the ground, and frequently bearing imimense 
bunches of mistletoe in their tops. At Prairie 
Bluffs, where we arrived the next morning, I 
found several subcretaceous shells, the same 
exogyra which is in such abundance at Judge 
Cross's, in Arkansas, and some aminonites 
■which I had not seen before. The Bluffs here 
3s only about half the height of that at Fort 
Claiborne, and the tertiary beds have probably 
been washed away from the subcretaceous ones. 
'We now proceeded lo Canton through a very 
attractive country, which might be explored 
•with a great deal of satisfaction at a healthy 
season of the year. I was informed that some 
■wells had been dug in these parts about 500 
feet deep, through the subcretaceous limestone 
Tbeds, into a quartzose slate, which, from the 
description I received of it, is probably a con- 
tinuation of that which underlies the great 
:tinnestone valley of the Alleghanies. Cahawba 
is a settlement on a high bluff of land at the 
mouth of the Cahawba River, built upon a rot- 
ten limestone which appears formed of broken- 
down testaceous matter. From hence to Ver- 



non the river averages about eighty yards in 
breadth, and the high bluffs are continuous, 
sometimes extending a mile or two without any 
depression. Froiti Vernon to Monigomery the 
distance is estinriated at fifty miles ; the banks, 
consisting of ferruginous earths and sands with 
a good deal of gravel, being generally about 100 
feet in height. 

After a tolerably interesting and peaceful voy- 
age, we reached Montgomery in the afternoon 
of the r2th of January, and here the steamer 
was to stop some time. The Coosa was still 
navigable forty miles to Wetumpka, a place near 
the falls of the river, but the captain intending 
to remain some time here before he proceeded 
up, I determined to leave the boat. It would 
have been agreeable to me to have visited the 
falls, because, from the information I received, 
the rocks there were gneiss, and this was one 
of the points of limitation of the sedimentary 
beds, from which the ocean had last retired : 
besides, I heard that bituminous coal, which is 
also found on the Black Warrior and other parts 
of Alabama, existed on a partial line not far 
from the Wetumpka falls, which is exactly the 
manner in which the Chesterfield coal-field in 
Virginia is situated in relation to the falls on 
James River at Richmond ; and one of the in- 
teresting questions suggested by the geology of 
North America is as to whether there is a line 
of coal-fields in the United States east of the 
Alleghany mountains, running in detached ba- 
sins from Virginia to Alabama. If the foliage 
had been out, the country would have been 
beautiful ; but considering the softness of the 
climate here, and the great fertility of the soil 
in Alabama, it is not surprising that people 
should flock— as they do— to this favoured part 
of the United States. Still, with all its advan- 
tages, I must say that I would rather be a visiter 
than a sojourner in the land : the persecuting 
malaria, which never pardons the country a sin- 
gle season, is of itself a great objection, and the 
universal and extravagant use of tobacco by the 
people would be to me another of equal magni- 
tude ; so, what with the effluvia of nature and 
tTian combined, this fine country, with all its 
advantages, seems to fall very far short of a ter- 
restrial Paradise. 

I was glad to leave the boat, which was a 
very dirty concern, and nothing could be less 
tempting than our fare; some of the passengers 
were kind and communicative, but others were 
too fond of gambling, and spitting, and smoking 
to permit the enjoyment of much comfort. 
These were not Mobile people, but individuals 
going to different plantations, roads to which 
come out upon the river ; and at most of these 
communications we either landed or took in 
persons on the way, but they were all coarse in 
their manners, and in many instances very dis- 
gusting. In an inordinate love of tobacco they 
all agreed, and it appeared to me that those 
whom the mania for this weed had seized in 
the strongest degree were always the most care- 
less about their manners, as if it were out of 
character for a tobacco-eater to be decent. A 
few of the tnen employed on board the steamer 
were Muskogee, or Creek Indians; this was 
the first time I had seen aborigines etnployed as 
labourers, and from the activity they showed 
when we stopped to take in fuel, I could not 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



145 



but think that if a different policy liad been ob- 
served towards this unlortunate race, good do- 
mestic servants and labourers might have been 
furnished from them in time, more inteUigent 
than the negro, and fitted to the climate ; but 
these considerations come too late — the fate of 
the Indians is sealed. 

From the landing we had to walk a mile to 
Montgomeiy, a small straggling town with a 
population of from two to three thousand inhai> 
jtanls, iiuilt upon a deposit of sand and red blu- 
ish clay, which, with occasional patches of rot- 
ten limestone in the local prairies of the neigh- 
bourhood, constitute the general soil of this part 
or' the country. 

The two principal streets are very broad, in 
the style common to all the southern towns, and 
from the great number of stores in them, 
amountmg at least to one hundred, it would 
seem to be a place of extensive inland business ; 
but of all the horrid filthy places into which I 
ever entered in any country, I think the pmi- 
cipal hotel here, which was the one to which we 
were directed by common consent of all those 
we made inquiries of, bears the dirty palm. 
Everything about it seemed to breathe of whis- 
key and tobacco, and the walls of the bed-room 
to which I was shown were so incommunicably 
squirted over with a black-coloured tobacco- 
juice, and with more disgusting things, that it 
was evident the visitors to the place were, as to 
manners, but little raised above the inferior ani- 
mals. There was an unfinished hotel then 
building opposite, but what the other hotels were 
which were not "principal," I had not time to 
ascertain. I regretted much, however, that I had 
not gone to one of them, upon the very chance 
that they could not be worse, and might be bet- 
ter, following the principle that a gentleman of 
my acquaintance once pursued in writing from 
the country to his agent in New York : " The 
servants you have sent me with good characters 
have all turned out so ill, that you will oblige 
me by sending those I am in want of at present 
with as little character as possible." And the 
plan succeeded, lor those with good characters 
tliinking they could always get other places, did 
just as they pleased, whilst the others being anx- 
ious to keep their places, were more circum- 
spect in their conduct. 

There was little temptation to remain here, 
and I turned my attention to leaving the place 
as soon as I found out how uncomfortable it was 
likely to be. Upon inquiry I found that the 
roads through the Indian territory of the Creek 
nation, through which I had now to pass to get 
mio the Slate of Georgia, were excessively 
broken up, especially the Indian bridges which 
cross the great swamps, and that in consequence 
thereof the letters were forwarded on horse- 
Dack, the mail-stage being unable to run ; so 
ihat I had got into a cleft stick, and must either 
remain here until the roads became passable for 
xhe mail — which was not expected until spring 
— or must take a private conveyance and pay 
.any price they might think proper to exact of 
mc. The landlord was the person I had to deal 
with, and he ended a monstrous account of the 
ditliculties with an equally monstrous price for 
conducting us in a miserable vehicle and a pair 
of wretched horses to Columbus, in Georgia, 
the distance being ninety miles. After a good 
T 



deal of chaffering, I finally agreed to give him 
sixty-five dollars, which, with a gratuity to the 
driver, amounted to about four shillings a mile 
in English money. 

Instead of getting off early the next morning 
as had been agreed, everything had to be repair- 
ed ; but at length, to our great satisfaction, we 
got out of the filthy house into the pine woods, 
where a gentle air was mournfully but pleasing- 
ly rustling the branches. We found the road as 
we advanced quite answering to the description 
they had given us of it, being so frightfully cut 
up as to render it impossible to sit in the vehi- 
cle : wherever it was dry enough, therefore, we 
walked, expecting every instant to see the car- 
riage overturned ; and indeed the manner in 
which it survived the rolling from one side to 
the other was quite surprising. The black fel- 
low, however, who drove us, seemed to take it 
as philosophically as if there was nothing un- 
common in this sort of motion ; he always 
urged us in a very anxious manner to get in 
whenever he came up with us, and seemed to 
think we were not quite right in our senses for 
prefer! ing to walk when we paid so much for 
riding. At length we came to a low part of the 
country completely inundated, where it was im- 
possible to walk, the water being in many places 
four feet deep. Here we were obliged to get in, 
and the old vehicle took to rolling in such a 
dreadful manner that every instant we expected 
to be soused into the water; and what rendered 
it really amusing was, that we were constantly 
obliged to draw up our limbs on the seat, for the 
water was at least eight inches deep in the bot- 
tom of the carriage, and went splashing about in 
the most extraordinary manner. All this time 
our trunks, which were lashed on behind, were 
being quietly dragged under the water. Mine 
had got such a satisfactory ducking before I had 
time to think of it, that I turned my attention 
exclusively to my portfolio and instruments to 
prevent them from getting wet, casting a look 
now and then at my companion, who never hav- 
ing travelled in that style in his native moun- 
tains, looked very woe-begone, and was con- 
stantly exclaiming, " Mais quel pays ! A-t-on 
jamais vu de pareils chemins!" Fatigued and 
wet, we reached at night an old settler's of the 
name of M'Laughlin, a very respectable sort of 
man, who lived upon some of the land which 
the Creeks had been compelled to surrender. In 
the course of the day we had only made four- 
teen miles, and the whole performance had been 
of such an anomalous character, that, persuaded 
it could not have been got up for less than that 
money in any other part of the world, I became 
quite reconciled to the landlord and his four 
shillings a mile. 

Next morning we went five miles to Oakfus- 
kcc Creek to breakfast, a pretty brawling stream, 
forming the present boundary betwixt the Creeks 
and the State of Alabama, which we crossed in 
a ferry boat. We were now upon Indian terri- 
tory, still possessed by the Indians, and where 
the laws, manners, and customs of the whites 
did not yet prevail. Captivated in my youth by 
what I had read and heard of the aboriginal in- 
habitants of North America, I had been led to 
visit that continent as early as 1806, more for 
the purpose of seeing the tribes of red men, and 
studying their languages, than with any other 



146 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



■view, and in the succeeding ypar had visited 
most of the tribes in Upper and Lower Canada, 
witli others dwelling within the limits of the 
United States. The msight I had obtained into 
the anomalous structure of the Indian dialects, 
which is to the ear what the synthetic arrange- 
ment of Chinese written characters is to the 
eye, had induced me to seek for information re- 
specting the Cherokee and Muskogee, or Creek 
tongues; and thus becoming familiar with the 
history of those people, I <;uuld not but feel a 
deep interest in the present state of the Creeks, 
to which they had been brought by a series 
of events that made them deserving of sympathy 
and admiration. 



CHAPTER XLII 

Description of the Muskogee or Creek People — Their 
Sachem, H'Gillivray — Their Treaties with the Ameri- 
can Government— 'i'he Ciiiefs corrupted by tlie Geor- 
gians— Wealherfonl, the Saclicni of Uic Lower Creeks, 
attacks anrl iiiass.-icres the Garrison of Fori Miinnr?: — 
Genera] Jackson takes the Field— Fatal Battle of Toho- 
peka, or the Horse Shoe — VVeatlierford's IJrroic Con 
duct — M'Intosli betrays his countrymen, and is Shot— 
The Creeks compelled to cede all their Country— Apol- 
ogy for the Whites. 

The Muskogee, or Creek people, are not to be 
considered as a dull, imbecile race of aboriginal 
savages, with not an idea beyond that of sup 
plying their daily wants : they rather resemble 
the Suliots, or some of those conimimities of 
Asiatic people, who, passionately attached to 
their native country, have contended with the 
most desperate valour to preserve it from the 
invaders whom they hated. Inhabiting an ar- 
dent climate, and a fertile country which sup- 
plied all their wants, war and the chase, at the 
period when the whites first appeared amongst 
them, were the pursuits they exclusively gave 
themselves up to. To powerful frames and 
forms of great symmetry, they united activity 
of person and undaunted courage. Their cop- 
per-coloured complexions, long coarse black 
hair, and dark wild eyes, were the beau ideal of 
Indian beauty ; and perhaps no human being 
could be more remarkable than a young, well- 
made Creek warrior on horseliack, dressed in a 
gaudy calico hunting-shirt, with a bright-colour- 
ed silk handkerchief wound gracefully round his 
head in the form of a tnihan. 

Previous to the year 1790 the Muskogee pop- 
ulation was very great, and claimed dominion 
over and possessed a territory, boimded on the 
east by the Savannah river, which comprehended 
perhaps twenty-five millions of acres of fertile 
land, being more than tiiree-fourths of the whole 
area of England. But about that period, the 
population of the State of Georgia encroaching 
coiiliiuiallv upon them, they found it necessary 
to enter into negotiations with the general gov- 
ernment of the United States, then administered 
by President "Washington. 

At this time Alexander M'Gillivray was, as 
he had long been, the principal chief of the 
Creek people. He was the son of an English- 
man by a Creek woman, had been well educated 
at Charlestan in South Carolina, and was fifty 
years old. At the death of his mother, who 
was herself a half breed, he became first sachem 
by the usages of the nation ; but leaving it to 



the people whether that dignity should be con- 
tinucil in Ills hands, they not only insisted iipore 
his retaining that rank, but afterwards called 
him, as if ny general consent, " king of kings;" 
and, from all the accounts we have of him, he 
was universally beloved by the people, and de- 
served their attachment During the civil war 
between Great Britain and her colonies, he ad- 
hered to the mother country, and fought against; 
the Americans ; but, alter the peace, circum- 
stances o(;curring which made it doubtful whether 
a collision might not take place between the 
Georgians and his people, he was invited by the 
federal authorities to New York, where the 
seat of government then was ; and going there 
with otlier chiefs in 1790, was well received by 
President Washington, with whose government 
he concluded a treaty in the month of August 
of that year. Tliis treaty was the first of twelve 
that have been made by the United States witk 
the Muskogee nation, and each of them has 
been a tir.u/y of cession except the last. In all 
the others the Creeks have gradually been made 
to cede a portion of their country adjoining to 
tlieir neighbours the Georgians, and to fall back 
upon the remainder ; in each case that remainder 
being auUninly guaranteed to thcni by the United 
States. The tenth treaty left them a very limit- 
ed portion of their ancient country; but by the 
eleventh they ceded every foot ol land contained 
in that limiied portion. By the twelfth and last 
treaty, the United States governmenl stipulate 
to give them certain lands west of the Missis- 
sippi for their nation to inhabit for ever ; that is 
to say, until the white population shall reach 
them, when the same game will have necessarily 
to be played over again. 

In the first treaty, made in the year 1790, are 
the two following articles: 

"Art. 5. The United States solemnly guaran- 
tee to the Creek nation all their lands within the 
limits of the United States, to the westward and 
southward of the boundary described by the 
preceding article. 

" Art. 6. If any citizen of the United States, 
or other person, not being an Indian, shall at- 
teiTipt to settle on any of the Creek lands, sucli 
person shall forfeit the protection of the United 
States; and the Creeks may pun is h htm or notf 
as they •please.'''' 

The manner in which the guarantee in the 
fifth article has been observed, is sufficiently 
explained by the fact that by the succeeding- 
treaties the Creeks have ceded every foot of 
land they possessed ; and as to the sixth article, 
which provides that the Creeks may punish in- 
irudevs upon their lands, it was expressly be- 
cause they endeavoured to enforce tliis article, 
and prevent new intruders settling upon their 
lands, that new quarrels arose betwixt them 
and the Georgians, which always ended in a 
new treaty and an important cession of the land 
intruded upon, under the pretence, generally, 
that it was within the "chartered rights of 
Georgia." 

If the Creeks, however, had remained a united 
people in their resistance to these encroach- 
ments, the spoliation of their territory would not 
have proceeded so rapidly. Unfortunately they 
became divided amongst themselves by the arts 
of the while men, and, as has often occurred in 
similar cases, the parly thai maintained the in- 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA 



147 



dependence of the nation was opposed by a 
niinorily, jealous of the ascendancy of some of 
the chiefs, and which rashly sought to strengthen 
itself hy the counsels and aid of the white men, 
whose sole object was to eject them all from 
Ihe country. 

As early as 1790 this became a source of 
weakness to the nation. M'Gillivray in his 
treaty of that period, had made an important 
cession of territory to the United States, upon 
tht; ostensible consideration of an annuity of 
1500 dollars, and a present of " certain valuable 
Indian goods." This was represented as an 
act of treason to his nation ; it was said that he 
had been corrupted, had become a pensioner of 
the United Slates, and had ceded a part of their 
territory without the consent of a general coun- 
cil of the people. The Sachem was so much 
hurt by the opposition he met with on his return, 
that he left his nation for awhile, and went to 
the Spanish settlements, from whence, however, 
he returned, and appeared for a time to have 
recovered liis popularity ; probably this was 
only in appearance, for he again went to Florida, 
and died at Pensacola in 1793. 

By Ihe treaty of Novemher 14, 180.5, another 
very nnportant cession of territory was made to 
the United States, together with a right to a 
horse path throughout the whole Creek territory, 
" in such direction as shall, by the President of 
the United States, be considered most conve- 
nient," with a right to all Americans to pass 
peaceably thereon, the Creek chiefs stipulating 
to keep ferry-boats at the rivers for "the con- 
veyance ol men and horses." In this treaty, 
which threw the whole Creek territory open to 
the whites, nothing is said about the right of 
the Creeks to punish intruders on their lands ; 
but the United States agreed to give to the 
nalion 12,000 dollars, in money or goods, for 
the term of eight years, and 11,000 dollars, in 
money or goods, for the term of the ten succeed- 
ing years, w ithout interest. 

The work of plunder and corruption was now 
rising to a great height ; the increasing popula- 
tion of Georgia was pressing upon the Indians. 
and the legislature of that State — in which the 
speculators upon Indian lands had a piedomina- 
ting induence — carried its political weight to the 
Congress to effect these treaties that were to 
aggrandize their own State and satisfy the ra- 
pacity of their own citizens, who were the spec- 
ulators and politicians for whose heneht these 
treaties were to be made. At all times there 
have been honourable and just men in the Con- 
gress, who saw into these machinations, and 
opposed them, but always in vain ; and the e\- 
ecutive government, who perceived how irresit- 
ibly events were tending to accomplish the ab- 
sorption of all the lands wiiich had been so 
stdemnly guaranteed to the Indians, could do no 
more, even if it were otherwise disposed, than 
to modify tlie injustice which was perpetrating, 
by executing the treaties as impartially as cir- 
cumstances admitted of. Every thing seemed 
to concur to nourish the increasing passion of 
the Americans to appropriate all terrjtories that 
were contiguous to them, and to create an ex- 
travagant opinion in the minds of iheVisinir gen- 
erations, that there was no moral inipropriety 
in any claim made by the United States, as they 
could not by any possibility be iuHhe wrong. 



The chiefs of the Upper Creek nation, who im- 
mediately adjoined the Americans — the Judases 
who had betrayed their country — and through, 
whose hands these annuities passed, became 
now, many of them, as eager to earn these pen- 
sions by the destruction of their nation, as tho 
Georgians were to encourage them ; lliey had 
their own friends to reward, and the fruits of 
their treachery being soon dissipated in whiskey 
and personal indulgences, their partisans became 
clamorous for the means of gratifying their pro- 
pensities. 

On the other hand the Lower Creeks, who 
had not tasted so abundantly the sweets of 
these treaties of peace and friendship, were be- 
coming more and more estranged Irom the up- 
per nation ; and when the United States declared 
war against Great Britain in 1812, they took up 
arms against the Americans, and led hy Wcath- 
erford — one of those half-breeds that are some- 
times gifted with such a surprising degree of 
eloquence, courage, and resources, as raises 
them at once to be the leaders of their nation — 
performed acts as conspicuous for their daring 
as they were for savage ferocity. Amongst 
these was the surprisal of Fort Mimms, a fort 
built by the United States in the Creek lerritoiy. 
At the head of 1500 warriors Weatherford bold- 
ly attacked the fort at noonday. Major Beasley, 
the Commandant, had a garrison in it of 275 
persons, some of whom were women and chil- 
dren. He had been already apprised of the ap- 
proach of Weatherford ; and if he had takea 
proper precautions, could, with about 200 meii 
that he had under his command, have effectually 
resisted the attack. Despising his enemy, he 
appears to have strangely neglected the safety 
of the fort, which gave Weatherford an opportu- 
nity of surprising it before they had time to close 
the gates, at which point a most sanguinary con- 
test took place hand to hand. The Americans 
fought bravely, and disputed the entrance with. 
desperate valour : they were however unable to 
close the gates, and a furious ccmtest of swords, 
bayonets, knives, and tomahawks, at length ter- 
minated in favour ()f tlie Indians, the brave Ma- 
jor Beasly and his gallant brother olticers being 
every <me slain on the S[)ot. Having massacred 
theganison, the Indians set fiie to the block- 
houses where the women and children had takea 
refuge, and, with the exception of a few, burnt 
them all up. Of the wlude number of 275, only 
17 survived, some of whom were sevejely 
wounded. 

Tlie news of this disastrous affair caused a 
great excitement in the slates that were conler- 
minous with the Indian territory. Amongst 
the.se was the State of Tennessee, which border- 
ed upon the Cherokee and Creek lands; and as 
this su(5ce.ss was considered to be o a very daa- 
gerous c;harai-ier, since it miglit lead to a t.'Oni- 
bination of all the Indian tribes, most, of whoia 
woulii willingly have enlercd into a general war» 
it was determined to oppose to WcatherCord a 
man whose reputation lor courage and deter- 
mination was at that lime well eslabl|,■^he(l in his 
own State, 'i'his man was tin-- n<r.v (•.••|rl)rated 
General Jackson, wbo, being highly pupular ia 
Teniie3s«e,iS(ioii sLiiu^eeded in raisi'r;.' 2000 light- 
ing men, ('(|n'ii|i(ii for Indian warfa,;, and burn- 
ing to r(:''aiinii! upon the Indians thi^ (iesirnclioft 
of the garrison of Fort Mimms. Geaeiiil Jack- 



148 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



son took the field before a regular commissariat 
could be establishod, crossed the Tennessee 
River, and trusting often to casual supplies, 
plung'ed into the wild country drained by the 
Blacic Warrior and Coosa rivers. On his left 
were a party of the upper Creeks, friendly to 
the United States, under the command of anoth- 
er famous half-breed named William M'lnlosh, 
■who, being bitterly opposed to Weatherford and 
the lower Creeks, sought every opportunity to 
damage them. Such was the fury of this man 
against his own countrymen, that at the battle 
of Aulossee — a place on the south bank of the 
Tallapoosa, about twenty miles north of east 
from Montgomery — he assisted most ferociously 
in the massacre of 300 wretched Creeks, who 
were surprised in their wigwams. 

After a great many fights in which the Creel<s 
were uniformly defeated and sustained severe 
Josses, they were induced by their prophets to 
fortify themselves upon a neck of land formed 
by a great curve in the Tallapoosa River, which 
the Creeks call Tohopeka, or Horse-Shoe. In 
this desperate state of their affairs the poor In- 
dians clung with more than their accustomed 
confidence to the conjurers of their nation who 
pretended to divine the future, and who had 
assumed the title of prophets. They were as- 
sured that this was the place where they were 
to conquer, and at any rate it was evident, from 
what was observed after the battle, that the last 
struggle was intended to be made here. They 
liad fortified themselves with great ingenuity, 
the points of resistance affbrded by the looaliiy 
Avere very favourable to them, and having about 
1000 tried men, they were not afraid of being 
taken by storm. 

Here Jackson followed them. His army had 
repeatedly mutinied for want of provisions, and 
lie only kept it together by sharing in an unosten- 
tatious manner all the privations of his men ; 
making no regular repasts, but sustaining him- 
self by the grains of corn which he carried in his 
pocket, and which he sometimes offered to his 
men when they were sinking from weakness 
and fatigue. With such an example in the chief, 
soldiers with any generous feelings will follow 
wherever he leads them. As soon as he reach- 
ed the place where the wretched Creeks — them- 
selves undergoing every sort of (irivation — were 
about to play their last stake, he attacked the 
place with a settled purpose to finish the war at 
this point. In his official letter he says, " Deter- 
mined to exterminate them, I detached General 
Coffee with the mounted and nearly the whole 
of the Indian force early in the morning of yes 
*^niav fMarch 27th, 1814), to cross the river 
about two miles below their encampment, and 
to surround the bend ill sacli a manner as that 
none of them should escape by attempting to cross 
the river." The place, after a severe contest of 
five hours, was stormed, and the Americans en- 
tered it. Five hundred and fifty-seven Indians 
were slain on the bend, and many others who 
attempted to cross the Tallapoosa were sabred 
by the horsemen : but to pursue the otficial 
tetter — " The fighting continued with some se- 
verity about five hours, but we continued to 
destroy many of them who had concealed them- 
selves under the banks of the river until we 
were prevented by night. This morning loe kill- 
ed sixteen icho had been concealed. We took about 



250 prisoners, all women and children, except 
two or three. Our loss is 106 wounded, and 25 
killed. Major M-Intosh, the Cowetau, who 
joined my army with a part of his tribe, greatly 
distinguished himself" 

If it had been a den of rattlesnakes their de- 
struction could not have been accomplished or 
related in a more energetic manner. 

Some of the Creeks now fled to Florida, and 
others into the Cherokee country, whilst Weath- 
erford and the few Indians adhered to him, were 
hunted into the swamps, and hemmed in in such 
a manner as to be reduced to the last extremity, 
feeding upon the roots and the barks of trees 
until famine and disease rapidly diminished their 
numbers. In the meantime Jackson had re- 
quired of the Indians who adhered to the Amer- 
icans to cause that chief to be delivered* bound 
to him to undergo his fate. Weatherford soon 
received information of this, and unable any 
longer to endure the misery of his followers, and 
determined not to submit to the indignity of be- 
ing bound, he resolved upon a step that marks 
the elevation of his character, and that produced 
consequences that reflect great honour even up- 
on the successful American general. 

It happened to me many years ago to hear 
the relation of what took place from an eye-wit- 
ness of the first interview which Weatherford 
had with his conqueror, 

Jackson was one day in his tent with some 
of his officers, when an Indian was seen on 
horseback galloping into the encampment, and 
who did not slop until he reached the General's 
tent. Throwing himself from his horse, he en- 
tered the tent boldly, and in a inoment stood 
before the commander-in-chief. The Indian 
was tall and well-proportioned, his countenance 
indicated great intelligence, and was distinguish- 
ed by that particular beauty which is sometimes 
given by a thin aquiline nose. His person was 
squalid and emaciated, his dress dirty and rag- 
ged, but his biilliant and still fierce black eyes 
showed at once that he was no common man. 
Addressing himself to Jackson, he instantly be- 
gan to this effect : — 

" I am Weatherford ; I fought you as long as 
I could ; I can fight no longer ; my people are 
dying in the swamp. Do with mt as you please ; 
I give myself up. I know you are a brave man ; 
have pity on my people. Let them have some- 
thing to eat ; send a good talk to them; they 
will do what you wish. Here I am." 

The inexorable temper of Jackson was soft- 
ened by the abject condition of the fallen chief, 
and his generosity awakened by this heroic con- 
duct : he spoke kindly to Weatherford, and bade 
him be comforted, declaring with warmth that 
no man should hurt a hair of his head, and that 
if the Indians would submit, he would take care 
of them and give them peace. Thus did this 
generous step, which could only have been sug- 
gested by a lofty mind, produce the happiest ef- 
fects. 

The Creeks had now received a fatal blow 
both to their power and their pride. They were 
at the mercy of their conquerors, and on the 9th 
of August, 1814, signed articles of "Agreement 
and Capitulation" with the successful General at 
Fort Jackson. These articles began as follows : — 
" Whereas an unprovoked, inhuman, and san- 
guinary war, waged by the hostile Creeks against 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



149 



the United States, liath been repelled, prosecu- 1 
ted, and determined successfully on the part of' 
the said Slates, in conformity wilh principles of 
national justice and honourable warfare," &c. 

By tliis treaty the Creeks ceded every part 
of the territory that was required of them. All 
the upper part of the Coosa country was surren- 
dered, and that river as far as Wetumpka be- 
came their boundary. Within the space of 
twenty-four years the Creeks had now surren- 
dered — with a few local exceptions — all that 
portion of their native country extending from 
the Coosa eastward to the Savannah ; compre- 
hending about 250 miles in breadth of the finest 
land in the United States. But a fine territory 
was still left to them, and if there was any virtue 
in words, the United Stales were bound by the 
following article in the treaty to protect them 
in its possession : — 

" Art. 2. The United States will guarantee 
to the Creek nation the integrity of all their ter- 
ritory eastwardly and northwardly of the said 
line, to he run and described as mentioned in 
the first article." 

Further concessions, however, were made by 
the treaty of January 22, 1818, in consideration 
of ihe United States paying the sum of 120,000 
dollars, in certain instalments; and on the 8th 
of January, 1821, a subsequent treaty of cession 
took place for other valuable considerations. 

Wiliiam M'Intosh, the half breed, who had 
contributed so efTectually to the destruction of 
his countrymen, the lower Creeks, was now the 
leading Sachem, and was thechief under whose 
management these treaties of cession were made. 
Emboldened by his success, and urged on by the 
speculators who were still watching for oppor- 
tunities to despoil the nation of everything, he 
iii>w ventured upon a proceeding which roused 
the lower Creeks from their apathy, and signed 
a convention, February 12, 1825, wilh certain 
American commissioners who were Georgians, 
in which it was provided that a further impor- 
tant cession should be made to the United States, 
for which the parties interested were to be com- 
pensated in the following manner. They were 
to receive acre for acre upon the Arkansas Riv- 
er, west of ihe Mississippi, upon condition of 
their emigrating to that country, and were be- 
sides to be paid a sum amounting to four hun- 
dred thousand dollars in money, to compensate 
them for their losses in removing from their na- 
tive country and to enable them " to obtain sup- 
plies in their new settlement." 

The Creeks had submitted with impatient re- 
luctance to the previous cession made by M'In- 
tosh, but this, which expatriated a great portion 
ofihem into the bargain, was intolerable. In 
vain had the chiefs told the American commis- 
sioners, at a council to which they were sum- 
moned, "We have no land to sell. M'Intosh 
knows that no part of the land can be sold with- 
out a full council, and wilh the consent of all 
the nation ; and if a part of the nation choose 
to leave the country, they cannot sell the land 
they have, but it belongs to the nation." A 
deaf ear was turned to this, and M'Intosh, 
templed by the personal advantages that were 
to be secured to him, and believing that the 
United Slates government would carry out ihe 
execution of the treaty, signed the document, 
with a few of the chiefs connected with hira, 



whilst thirty-six of them, present at the coun- 
cil, refused to put their marks to it. Many of 
the chiefs now openly denounced him ; and let- 
ters he had written to some of the half-breeds, 
oflering to bribe them with part of the money- 
he was to receive from the American commis- 
sioners, being produced at a subsequent council, 
his treachery to the nation was apparent to 
every one. Perceiving that a great majority of 
the Creeks were inclined against him, M'Intosh 
repaired to the State of Georgia, where his 
abettors were, and claimed the protection of the 
governor. Having been assured that he should 
receive it, he returned to his house, on the 
Chatahoochie, where two of his wives lived, 
and where some Americans and suh-chiefs of 
his own party soon joined him. While here, 
relying upon the powerful protection of Gover- 
nor Troup of Georgia, Menaw-way, a chief of 
the lower country, accompanied by a very large 
party of armed Oakfuskee warriors, suddenly- 
surrounded the house on Sunday morning the 
1st of May, about two hours before daylight. 
As soon as day broke he sent an interpreter to 
inform the white people in the house that they 
and the women and children must instantly 
leave it ; that it was not his intention to hurt 
them, but that General M'Intosh having broken 
the law of the nation, they intended to execute 
him immediately. All now left the house but 
M-Intosh and one Tustenugge, who was his 
principal confederate in executing the obnoxious 
treaties. Menaw-way, who seemed determin- 
ed to hold no conversation wilh the delinquent 
chiefs, now directed his warriors to set fire to 
the house ; and the inmates, making a despe- 
rate sally from the door to escape being burnt 
alive, were both shot dead. 

The governor of Georgia, incensed at this exe- 
cution of his proteges, breathed nothing but ven- 
geance -against their enemies, who, probably, 
but for the wise and humane view which the 
federal government (then administered by Pres- 
ident Adams) took of the causes which had led 
to this characteristic and summary proceeding, 
would have had to undergo new persecutions 
from their white neighbours. The President 
not only used his authority upon this occasion 
to protect the Indians from further injury, but 
entered into a treaty with them on 24th of Jan- 
uary, 1826, whereby the last convention signed 
by M'Intosh was declared null and void. This 
treaty contained also a cession of some lands, to 
make it acceptable to the Georgians, for which 
the sum of 217,600 dollars was to be paid to 
the chiefs and warriors, as well as an additional 
perpetual annuity of '20,000 dollars. The inter- 
ests also of the friends of M'Intosh were provided 
for ; they were to emigrate to the west side of 
the Mississippi — an arrangement which met 
their approbation — and were to be liberally pro- 
vided for, and to be under the protection of the 
United States. This treaty, which was no 
doubt made in a spirit of fairness to the Indians, 
also contained the usual guarantee to all the 
lands " not herein ceded, to which they have a 
just claim." A further treaty of cession, how- 
ever, was entered into on the "25lh of November, 
1827, for the purpose of quieting some titles in 
the "chartered limits of Georgia," the sum of 
42,000 dollars being the consideration paid hv 
the United Slates, 



150 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



The last treaty of cession was made on the 
24th of March, 1832, when the government of 
the United States was administered by Presi- 
dent Jackson, the person who had given the 
Creeks such a fatal blow in 1814. Tne treaty 
commenced in the following significant words : 
" Art. 1. The Creek tribe- of Indians cede to 
the United States all their land east of the Mis- 
sissippi rivery 

Thus was extinguished the title of the Mus- 
kogee people to every foot of land comprehended 
in their ancient territory, consisting of about 
twenty-five millions of acres of fertile land, all 
of which had been now ceded in a little more 
than forty years to the white population of the 
adjacent States. 

The speculators had now effected their great 
object of despoiling the Creeks of their native 
country. Ostensibly, the treaty provided for the 
interests of the Indians, but, substantially, it was 
a provision for their plunderers. Ninety of the 
principal chiefs were to have one section * of 
land each, as soon as the survey of the land had 
been effected by the United States ; and every 
head of a Creek family was also to have a half 
section. Those who consented to emigrate and 
join their countrymen west of the Mississippi 
■were to be removed at the expense of the Amer- 
ican government, and to be subsisted by it one 
year after their arrival there. To the specula- 
tors the most interesting portion of the treaty 
•was contained in the following words : 

"Art. 3. The tracts [those provided for the 
chiefs and heads of families] may be conveyed 
by the persons selecting the same to any other 
persons, for a fair consicleration, in such manner 
as the President may direct." 

Now these chiefs and heads of families, thus 
to be provided for, were illiterate, wretched 
beings, broken down in spirit by the ruin of their 
nation, and most of them addicted to excessive 
drunkenness. There was not a part of the terri- 
tory where white men were not to be found 
vending whiskey to the poor Indians on credit ; 
so that at the time this treaty was made they 
■were all deeply indebted; or if any of them had 
had but slight dealings with these men, being 
entirely illiterate, they neither knew how to 
keep an account of their transactions, nor what 
the nature of the paper was which they had been 
induced to sign before witnesses on coming to a 
settlement. 

So degraded and miserable was their condi- 
tion, that almost any of them could be brought 
to sign any thing when sufficiently excited by 
■whiskey ; and although the third article pro- 
vided that the conveyance of their lands to 
others should be made under the direction of 
the President, yet he could do no more than 
delegate agents to inquire into the transactions 
of the Indians and their white creditors, which 
agents were always presumed to be favourable 
to these last, and to be easily satisfied of the 
♦' fair consideration" that had been given. Sub- 
stantially, therefore, this treaty was a liquida- 
tion of accounts betwixt them and their credi- 
tors, and transferred to these last the lands 
■which it ostensibly assigned to the Indians : 
indeed if any of them had even succeeded in 
retaining possession of their sections, it was 

* 640 acres. 



evident, that under such a state of things it was 
impossible for isolated individuals to live amongst 
the white men that were now about to pour in 
amongst them : they could follow the chase no 
longer, all their occupations were at an end, 
and nothing would soon be left for them but 
acts of violence and drunkenness, until disease 
should destroy them, or until they should be 
forcibly removed from the country. Such was 
the situation, and such the Cuture prospects, of 
the remains of the great Muskogee people at 
the ratification of this treaty. 

It is due, however, to truth to say that there 
had never been wanting virtuous and excellent 
persons in other parts of the United States to 
inveigh loudly against the whole system of pro- 
ceedings by which such an atrocious spoliation 
was consuamiated. Nearer to the scene of 
action a more moderate degree of disapproba- 
tion was sometimes expressed, and it was not 
unusual to hear a qualified apology for these 
transactions from sensible and respectable per- 
sons, who would shrink from committing acts 
of injustice and inhumanity themselves ; and 
who observed that, however criminal such pro- 
ceedings might appear, the removal of Indians 
from their lands did not attach as a crime to 
the nation that removed them ; for where the 
white population increased so rapidly, the neces- 
sity of their removal becaine unavoidable ; and 
the act, therefore, being involuntary, could not 
be a crime. 

If a contrast were to be drawn between the 
intrinsic importance to the world, of a nation of 
aboriginal savages and a community of civMised 
and religious white people, all men would prob- 
ably be found to agree which of the two should 
be preserved, even if it involved the destruction 
of the other. In the eyes of the educated white 
man, the life of the Indian is divested of every 
rational comfort, that could encourage him to 
hope he could ever be reconciled to it. It is a 
mere animal life, without religion, and without 
any law except the law of revenge. Restrained 
neither by education nor example, passion alone 
rules, and war and the chase become his sole 
occupations. His children pursue the savage 
customs of their forefathers ; and as they in- 
crease in numbers, only extend the deadly spec- 
tacle of whole nations living and dying without 
the desire of knovvledge. 

With a well-trained white man, every thing 
is in a state of religious and moral progression. 
Education engrafts the desire of knowledge in 
his young mind, and renders its acquisition cer- 
tain. His labour, successfully applied in one 
direction, opens other avenues to him still more 
profitable, and leads to the development of every 
recourse of human talent and ingenuity. He 
abounds in the substantial comforts of life, and 
is the friend of peace and law, knowing that 
they alone furnish a secure protection to the fu- 
ture enjoyment by his generations of the proper- 
ty he has acquired by his own honourable la- 
bours. We may believe, therefore, that men 
who thus, by tiieir sobriety, industry, fidelity, 
and integrity in social life, exemplify a con- 
sciousness of their responsibility to their Crea- 
tor, are, whilst extending their generations, 
worthily pursuing the true purposes of their ex- 
istence, and are qualifying themselves for a more 
perfect state of enjoyment hereafter, such, per- 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



151 



Jiaps, as we can hardly conceive Uio mere ani- 
mal Indian to be capable of" aspirinf,' to. This 
contrast, however, if it is not allogotlier theo 
Tclical, is not by any means applicable to the 
people of Georgia. They, at any rate, were not 
jinder the necessity of expelling the Creeks to 
make room for an increasing virtuous popula- 
tion : their proceedings had been at all times 
marked by fraud and violence, against which 
their victims had in vain looked up for protec- 
tion to the federal government, — a protection it 
was bound upon every consideration, divine and 
human, to have given them, and which, per- 
haps, it was alone restrained from doing by sor- 
did political management. If the federal gov- 
ernment could not have done every thing the 
Creeks could fairly claim under its repeated so- 
lemn guarantees, there was still something left 
in its power. Having repeatedly treated with 
them as an independent people under their pro- 
tection, it was bound to give them a domestic 
government, to have provided for their conver- 
sion to Christianity, and to have afforded them 
every facility of becoming cultivators, and form- 
ing themselves into contented communities, as 
some of the Choctaws and Cherokees are at this 
<lay. 



CHAPTER XLIII. 

The ruins of a Nation — Kateebee Swamp — .'\ Turkey ini- 
plumis — EniigranU with their Shives — Phlebotomy — 
Diamond Rattle Snakes — Reach Columbus, in Georgia 
— Falls of the Chatahoochie — Leave Columbus — Ob- 
servations upon the Family of Naiades — Arrive at Au- 
gusta-Railroad to Charleston, in South Carolina — 
Reach Columbia, in South Carolina. 

With these events, as they are just sketched, 
uppermost in my mind, I now entered the Creek 
territory. Tiie lands had been surveyed, the 
chiefs who had deluded the nation into the 
treaty had been well provided for, and the rest 
with very few exceptions, had transferred their 
rights to white men. I was now to be a wit- 
ness, not of the ruins of a Palmyra or a Baby- 
lon, but of a nation of famous warriors degraded 
to the lowest pitch of drunkenness and despair, 
and surrounded in every direction by the least 
industrious and most dissolute white men on the 
continent of America. 

Everything as we advanced was Indian, the 
road was crooked, bad, and made without any 
system, and by its side occasional ragged-look- 
ing pieces of ground, badly cleared up, on which 
were built miserable-looking cabins without any 
fences near them. We had not been half an 
hour in the territory before we came to a filthy 
cabin where a villanous-looking white man sold 
tobacco and whiskey. A stream was running 
close by, and at the door of the cabin three 
other brutal-looking whites were standing with 
this man, all engaged in making game of a fine 
tall Indian, about forty-five years old, who was 
remarkably well made. He was excessively 
drunk, and was staggering about stark naked 
and vociferating in an unintelligible manner, 
whilst the foam from his mouth was falling on 
his prominent breast. These fellows were pro- 
mising him another drink if he would jump into 
the stream, but although they had persuaded him 
to strip, the morning was so cold and the water 
— on account of the late rains— so high, that he 



seemed to have sense enough left not to go any 
farther. We left the place thoroughly disgust- 
ed, but I have no doubt they prevailed ujion him 
at length, for the Indian, when tipsy, is outra- 
geous for more liquor until he becomes dead 
drunk ; and the men told us that he had often 
done it before. Our road was indescribably bad, 
going over beds of black waxy plastic clay, of 
the consistency of that on the small prairies in 
Arkansas, and entirely cut up by the immense 
number of waggons containing families that 
were emigrating from South Carolina to Alaba- 
ma. Being on foot, and always a-head of the 
carriage, I used to enter the Indian cabins I 
came up with, and enter into conversation with 
those of the people who could speak a little 
English. Nothing could exceed the dirt and 
stench of these places. In one of them I stop- 
ped half an hour, and saw breakfast cooked for 
sotne Indian woincn by a negress who wasthe'r 
slave ; it consisted of some rotten-looking meat, 
and her manner of cooking it, in a dirty pan 
which seemed never to have been cleaned, was 
something quite shocking. 

On reaching the Kateebee swamp we found 
the bridge of logs, which extended about a mile, 
quite dislocated with the incessant passage of 
waggons and the rise of the waters. A file of 
them had just passed it with great difficu'ty, 
and on taking a look at the numerous holes made 
in it, sotne of which were four feet deep, I de- 
spaired of getting our vehicle over. A person 
on horseback, who was accompanying one of 
the waggons, and with whom I had entered into 
conversation, very kindly lent me his horse to 
cross the swamp with, and gave me directions 
how to proceed ; by observing these I succeed- 
ed, after a hard struggle ; and on reaching the 
other end, where were some more waggons, I 
sent the horse back to him by a negro slave be- 
longing to one of them. 

Almost the whole of the bridge was under 
water, and in one part of it the structure had 
been quite broken up for a distance of at least 
200 yards, the horse treading fearfully amongst 
the logs, some of which were floating and some 
sticking in the mud, not a little puzzled how to 
get out of these chasms after I had forced him 
into them. 

From hence I proceeded on foot to Walton's, 
a house of entertainment, where the carriage 
finally overtook me, to the great satisfaction of 
Mr. T********, who considered the log-bridge, 
when he got xipon it, as the ne plus ultra of his 
travels in this direction ; but the driver was ac- 
customed to scenes of this kind, and telling him 
to sit still, at length extricated him. At this 
house I met two ladies, both of theiTi very gen- 
teel persons, on their way from Charlestown, in 
South Carolina, to Mobile : one of them was a 
Mrs. H*****, and the other was a Mrs. B***% 
her niece, an extremely beautiful and interest- 
ing young person, wlio had lately been left a 
widow. Having heard unpromising accounts 
of the Kateebee Swamp, they had stopped here 
to get inforination from some one who had 
crossed it. We took a late repast togettier, and 
I do not know that I ever felt more sympathy 
for any individuals than for these amiable wo- 
men, who were travelling through such an in- 
hospitable country at this unpropitious season, 
with no attendants but a boy and a negro who 



IS'^ 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



drove their carriage. On parting I gave him in- 
structions how to proceed, and was glad to find 
he was an intelligent and careful man. As to 
his fair charge, they were both resolutely bent 
upon making the best of everything, and were 
prepared to meet events in that admirable spirit 
•which frequently characterises the sex upon 
perilous occasions. 

Everything as we advanced into the Creek 
country announced the total dissolution of or- 
der. Indians of all ages were wandering about 
listlessly, the poorest of them having taken to 
begging, and when we came in sight would 
come and importune us for money. Some of 
them, imitating the whites, were doing their 
best to prey upon each other, for we frequently 
saw squavk's belonging to some of the chiefs 
seated by the roadside at a log or rude table 
with a bottle of whiskey, and a glass to supply 
their unfortunate countrymen who had anything 
to give in return, if it were only the skin of an 
animal. These women seemed to laugh at the 
distresses of the others, and gave us a great 
deal of their eloquence when we passed them, 
but fortunately we did not understand what they 
said, though by their lifting up the whiskey bot- 
tle it was evident they wanted to make some- 
thing out of us also. In other places we met 
young men in the flower of their age, dressed in 
ragged hunting-shirts and turbans, staggering 
along, and often falling to the ground, witli emp- 
ty bottles in their hands : in this wretched state 
of things, with the game almost entirely destroy- 
ed, it is evident that nothing will soon be left to 
those who have beggared themselves but to die 
of want, or to emigrate, a step they are so very 
averse to take, that in their desperation they 
have already committed some murders. 

The jurisdiction of this part of the territory 
had now passed over from the United States to 
the State of Alabama, which not having yet 
commenced its exercise, the Indians did just as 
they pleased. One of them lately shot a sort 
of itinerant preacher, named Davis, with whom 
he had had some dealings, and afterwards came 
to Walton's and said he was very sorry, but he 
thought it was a wild turkey he had fired at. 
This no doubt was a piece of Indian wit, and 
meant not that he was sorry for what he had 
done, but that he was sorry it was not a wild 
turkey he had shot. The few white families 
who have established themselves on the road 
were beginning, and with reason, to be alarmed 
at their situation, for it would require very little 
combination on the part of the Indians to mas- 
sacre them all in one night. 

At the Persimmon Greek and Swamp we met 
with another broken-down log-bridge that was 
dangerous in some places ; but several Indians 
who were here behaved very well, giving us 
most effectual assistance in getting the carriage 
across, for which we paid them liberally. From 
hence we proceeded to one Macgirt's a white 
man, living in a filthy, Indian-looking place, who 
pretended to give us some breakfast, but it was 
so disgustingly bad that we were unable to touch 
it. This uian said he expected every night to 
have his throat cut, which induced me to tell 
him, that if it would be any consolation, he 
I might be quite sure they would not touch his 
I victuals. We now got upon an excessively bad 
'i road, so cut up that the horses could hardly drag 



the carriage through the deep ruts, and the soil 
being of the red, vva.xy kind, we found it almost 
as difficult to walk upon it. In the course of 
the day we met a great many families of plant- 
ers emigrating to Alabama and Mississippi to 
take up cotton plantations, their slaves tramping 
through the waxy ground on foot, and the heavy 
waggons containing the black women and chil- 
dren slowly dragging on, and frequently break- 
ing down. All that were able were obliged to 
walk, and being wet with fording the streams 
were shivering with cold. The negroes suffer 
very much in these expeditions conducted in 
the winter season, and upon this occasion must 
have been constantly wet, for I am sure we ford- 
ed from forty to fifty streams this day, which, 
although insignificant in dry weather, were at 
this time very much swollen with rain. We 
passed at least 1000 negro slaves, all trudging 
on foot, and worn down with fatigue. 

The Indian cabins, as we advanced, were 
somewhat different from those we observed on 
entering the territory, being merely circular 
spaces covered with bark, and apparently ex- 
posed to all the rains : on examining them, how- 
ever, 1 found that a small trench was dug round 
them which prevented the superficial water get- 
ting in, and that the bark was lapped over so 
well that it kept all the rain out. But no lan- 
guage can describe the filth inside of them, and 
the disgusting appearance of their tenants, espe- 
cially the old crones. The women seemed to be 
fond of being bled, for in one of the largest cab- 
ins a young man had been bleeding several of 
thetn with a rude lancet. Amongst the rest 
was an old creature turned sixty, the most 
thoroughly hideous, wrinkled, dark, and dirty 
hag I had ever seen amongst them : she had 
the features and hair of an Alecto, and was 
completely stark naked. 

We made only twenty-five miles this day, 
and arrived after dark excessively fatigued at 
one Cook's, a cheerful, dissipated sort of fellow; 
whose wife, however, being a very respectable 
woman, gave us a tolerable clean supper and 
separate beds. In the morning I found that 
Mr. Cook was a collector of natural curiosities,, 
the stuffed skins of three extraordinarily thick 
Diamond rattlesnakes being hung up in the porclx 
of his little tavern, one of which was seven feet 
ten inches long, and thirteen inches and a quar- 
ter in circumference. He said that great num- 
bers of these enormous snakes, which I beheve 
have not yet been described, were found in the 
pine lands of this part of the Creek nation. 
There is also some limestone near his house, ia 
which I observed imperfect specimens of Gry- 
phffia vesiculosa. From hence we got into a. 
very pretty sandy district, and found a tolerably 
good road on the sand ridges. Streams, whose 
banks were covered with laurels, live oaks, and„ 
other evergreens, were running pleasingly at the 
base of graceful pine hills, which overlaid a rot- 
ten limestone, and wild grass was growing ev- 
ery where in great profusion. This day we 
met an almost uninterrupted line of emigrants,, 
with innumerable heavy and light waggons. 
Some of them had got stuck fast in the deep 
bottoms, and the men around them were pulling, 
hauling, whipping, and cursing and swearing to 
get them out ; there were also some lighter 
carriages, indicating abetter class of emigrants^ 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



155 



Amongst the rest was an old-fashioned gig, 
with a lame horse guided bj- an aged grand- 
motlier, with several vviiite and black cliildren 
stuck in it around her. The whole scene would 
have reminded me of the emigrations in patriar- 
chal times, but for the very decided style of the 
cursmg and swearing. As we advanced they ! 
all inquired if the road was not better a-bead ; 
and our answer generally was, "Keep up your 
spirits and you'll get through." At one time j 
of tlie day we certainly passed 1200 people, 
black and white, on foot. We found very few 
Indians in this part of the territory — a circum- 
stance I was glad of, as the spectacle they fur- 
nished was always a distressing one ; and oc- 
casionally some of the young men, who were 
rather drunk, had been very insolent to us. 

About eight miles before w^ reached the Cha- 
tahoocliie we met boulders of gneiss and quartz, 
always an indication, in this part of North 
America, of the limits of the subcretaceous and 
tertiary beds. In the afternoon we reached the 
Chatahoochie, it having taken us four days to 
travel a distance of ninety miles. This fine 
stream is crossed by an excellent bridge, and 
divides the state of Georgia from the Creek ter- 
ritory now forming part of Alabama. On the 
opposite bank is the pretty town of Columbus, 
in Georgia, where we stopped for the night at a 
noisy tavern, which seemed to be a general 
boarding-house for the town. My first care 
was to secure places for the mail-stage in the 
morning ; the next, to hasten to the Falls of the 
Chatahoochie, about a mile from Columbus, 
where I had the pleasure of meeting the gneiss 
jocks again in place, and of seeing this fine 
Viver tumble over them just as it does at Fred- 
ericsburgh and Richmond, in Virginia : indeed, 
there is a strong scenic resemblance betwixt 
the falls of all the rivers on the east side of the 
chain which fronts the Atlantic. After gratify- 
ing my curiosity, I recrossed the bridge to the 
Indian side of the Chatahoochie, wliere I saw a 
great many huts, and some dwellings apparent- 
ly belonging to white persons. Here I found 
the lowest stage of drunkenness and debauchery, 
prevailing to such an extent that the settlement 
had acquired the nickname of Sodom: and on 
my return into Columbus the street was swarm- 
ing with drunken Indians, and young prosti- 
tutes, both Indian and white, a sufficient indi- 
cation of the manners of the place. 

Having reached the tavern again, we endea- 
voured to get something to eat, and were told 
to wait until the supper-bell rang ; which hav- 
ing done with great patience, we moved, as 
soon as the tumultuous rush common upon such 
occasions was effected, to the supper-table; hut 
it was so full that it was quite impossible to get 
a seat there, neither was there another chair or 
bench in the room ; so, knowing it would serve 
no purpose to show any impatience, we remain- 
ed standing and looking on. The art of bolting 
was practised here with as much success as I had 
seen it done at any other place, and in less than 
ten minutes every man, without excepiion, had 
gone back again to the bar-room ; a circum- 
stance that would have given us unalloyed 
pleasure, if they had not taken every scrap that 
had been set on the table along with them. We 
now made our wants known ; and the mistress 
of the house, learning that we were the two 
U 



" 77ic;i" that had come from the "nation" in a 
carriage, very obligingly ordered some food to 
be produ(!ed for us, which after a little more 
patience, we had the satisfaction of eating alone. 

We left Columbus, January 17, at 5V a. m. , 
keeping on the edge of the gneiss, which is 
covered with sand, gravel, and clay, bearing oak, 
hickory {Juglans), and pine trees. During the 
day we got upon the red lands, formed appa- 
rently by the decomposition of primary ferrugi- 
nous slates, and proceeded on over what is call- 
ed a rolling and broken country. At the end of 
fifteen iniles we stopped at Ellerslie to break- 
fast, and were heartily glad we should not have 
to encoimter any more of the distressing scenes 
we had left behind, for we had now got into" a 
white community, if a population can properly 
be called so where nine out of ten are black. 
From thence we proceeded seventeen miles to 
Talbotton, the soil being generally red, and 
strewed with quartz boulders. On our road 
from this place to Flint River — a tributary of 
the Appalachicola, and a very fine stream — the 
driver incautiously overturned the mail-stage, 
without however, doing us any great harm. 
Having crossed the Flint, we proceeeed through 
a sandy country, with pine timber, seven mUes 
to Knoxville ; and thence to Macon, a very 
pretty town, with a population of from 3000 to 
4000 inhabitants, and which, like all the towns 
in this part of the United States, has a cheerful 
appearance, not being cramped up as they are 
in the Northern States. The principal street in 
Macon is so wide that I took the trouble to 
measure it, and found it 150 feet broad. 

The Ocmulgcc River, upon which Macon is 
situated, is a branch of the Alatamaha, the first 
river which empties into the Atlantic Ocean 
north of the peninsula of Florida, and the Flint, 
which we have just left behind, being a branch 
of the Appalachicola River, which empties into 
the Gulf of Mexico, I determined to stay a 
short time here for the purpose of collecting 
soine of the fresh-water shells called Unios 
from the Ocmnlgce, and comparing them with 
those I had taken from the various waters which 
flow into the Gulf of Mexico. The fact had 
been for some time ascertained that, farther to 
the north, the Unios, which are one of the divi- 
sions of the family Naiades of Lamarck, consist- 
ed as to numbers, of comparatively iew species, 
and these generally homely in their appearance, 
thin and unornamented, when contrasted with 
those so unrivalled for their beauty, which in- 
habit the waters flowing into the Gulf of Mexi- 
co; the Atlantic shells being without that re- 
splendent nacre, that rare pearly and delicately-- 
coloured interior, that rich velveity tuberculated' 
and plicated exterior, and those curious alated 
forms which distinguish the Unios of the west- 
ern waters. 

An opportunity now occurred of observing 
whether so extraordinary a difference in the ex- 
terior and interior structure of shells belonging 
to the same genus was geographically true at 
this point, where rivers emptying into the At- 
lantic and into the Gulf of Mexico, were flow- 
ing through the same region, and only distant; 
thirty miles from each other. 

Owing to flie state of the waters, I was not; 
fortunate in procuring many shells. The Vmo 
purpurcus, however, which I had not found in 



154 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



any of the Gulf waters, and which is the char- | 
acteristic shell of the Atlantic rivers, I did find | 
in the Ocnuil^ee, without heing accompanied by I 
a single specimen of any of the beautiful west- 
ern species, with most of which I had now be- 
some extremely conversant : nor could I find 
out "from any of the people at Macon, to whom 
I showed specimens of the western shells, that 
such were found in the Ocmulgee at any stage 
of its waters. This examination, therefore, 
tended to confirm the opinion that an extra- 
ordinary diversity of character prevails in the 
Unios inhabiting these two classes of rivers, a 
diversity which appears to amount to a total 
separation of kinds. 

Nor does the fact militate against this opinion 
of their general separation, that at various 
points lying farther to the north, the inhabitants 
of these two classes of rivers are, for a limited 
distance, found partially intermixed in the 
sources of streams which interlock each other, 
as well as in some of the upper lakes, such as 
Lake Erie, Lake Huron, and Lake Michigan ; 
for the western Unios found at those points do 
not appear to travel to great distances from 
their native waters, and never to descend the 
Atlantic rivers to where the tide flows ; so that 
even the exception proves the fact of a real ge- 
ographical separation of these mollusca, leav- 
ing the intermixture to be explained by the oc- 
-casional inundations that frequently connect 
the eastern and western waters at points where 
the difference of level is never more than twen- 
ty feet. 

Mr. Conrad, the only American naturalist 
•who appeai-s to have travelled for the purpose 
of studying this interesting Naiad family, has 
communicated to me the specific names of 
.more than one hundred species (1) of the Unio 
inhabiting the waters flowing into the Gulf of 
Mexico, of which not one of the preponderating 
species has been found in the Atlantic streams : 
and, as I have before observed, the Umopurpu- 
reus, that is the characteristic shell of about 
twenty species inhabiting the Atlantic streams, 
is not found to the west of Flint River. 

The causes which have produced so striking 
a difference in the shells of these mollusca, or 
have led to this curious geographical distribution 
«f their different species, well deserve the atten- 
tion of philosophic naturalists. If what have 
hitherto been called species are, in most instan- 
ces, only varieties produced by expediency, then 
the mineral character of the strata through 
which the rivers flow, the degree of dynamic ac- 
tion of the streams, and the peculiarity of food 
and climate, may be amongst the efficient causes 
of geographical distribution and general variety. 

On the other hand, as there was undoubtedly 
a time preceding the existence of all the rivers, 
Tiz., when the whole continent of North Ameri- 
ca was covered by the ocean, the origin of all 
fresh-water mollusca must necessarily be as- 
signed to a period subsequent to tlie upraising 
of the dry land from the bosom of the ocean, and 
the establishment of rivers; a state of things 
Avhich admits a conclusion capable, perhaps, ot 
reconciling the anomaly of the case, since it 
■wvould bring all these widely separated mollusca 
into the general category of organized beings, 
created with inherent faculties capable of secu- 
Turing all the advantages of the varying regions 



in which they were produced, and in which they 
were fitted to live, without a chance of any ma- 
terial deviation in their con.slitutional structure 
The power of accommodating themselves to a 
partial change of country has no doubt been ac- 
corded to all beings, and, in the case of these 
mollusca, we see how they are subject to ad- 
mixture, and to a casual separation from their 
original habitats. 

The differences in the e.xterior of their shells, 
even when they are so slight as to escape the 
notice of other observers, have made them ob- 
jects of the most intense anxiety to many of 
those ardent conchologists who indulge in ex- 
tensive generalization over the fireside, and who 
rush into immortality upon the strength of any 
difference, often unreal, which appears to sepa- 
rate one shell from another, and to justify them 
in adding to the Ifst of species, already cumbrous 
and perplexing, by the multiplication of conflict- 
ing synonymes. The grand object of some of 
these sedentary naturalists appears to be to coin 
a new Latin name, and add the magical word 
"nobis" to it. Accidental characters are just 
as valuable to them as natural ones. If a shell 
in a particular stream is soft and friable and 
easily decorticated at the beaks, w here it is most 
exposed to disintegration, it is forthwith raised 
into a species, and becomes Unio canosus, al- 
though practical naturalists know that the same 
shell in other streams is never decorticated in 
the slightest degree. 

Other shells, which have been named circulus, 
orbiculahs, siibrotundus, triangularis, and the like, 
according to their approximation to a round or 
angular shape, are often found with characters 
totally opposite to those specifically assigned to 
them ; so that it is not uncommon to find Unios 
without the specific characters upon which thejr 
rank depends in the books, whilst they have got 
those of almost every other shell. Unio cor- 
Tiutus, which in some streams has peculiar pro- 
tuberances on the e.xterior of the shell, is found 
in others without even the budding of horns; 
so that there are horned shells without horns, 
and carious shells perfectly sound. What would 
be said of the want of sense of cattle-breeders, 
if they were to talk of long-horned cattle that 
had got no horns, and Durham short-horns with 
long horns? These races, which externally 
differ from all other animals of the same family, 
are artificial varieties produced by a departure 
from their natural habits, and would, if they 
were no longer influenced by art, go back to 
another and very different state. It is not, 
therefore, very surprising that the same Unio 
should differ occasionally so much in the shape 
of its shell, or that it should he carious in one 
stream and sound in another, since the modifi- 
cation in the first case may be produced by the 
circumstances it is exposed to, aided by an in- 
herent power of adaptation to them, and in the 
second, perhaps, by the absence or presence of 
parasites. As to the nature of that inherent 
|)Ower, we know that the shells of these mol- 
lusca are repaired again when they are injured; 
and may, without assuming either intelligence 
or volition for the animal in that act, infer that 
the same provident care which knits the broken 
limb of the unconscious child, has not only been 
extended to the mollusca, but modifies, when 
necessary, the primary form of their shells. 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



\Yhen, tbrrefore, we find them lluis modified, it 
is but pvideuce of what nature is ever vigilant 
to do for conservative purposes. \\'e cannot, 
therefore, hut regard the labours of those neolo- 
gists who found their classification of the mol- 
lusca upon the sliells of the animals, as idle and 
iusecure. It is to he regretted, both for the 
sake of zoology and conchology, that so many 
specie-makers are pursuing the shadow and not 
the sui)stance. When conehologists make the 
]<nowledge of malacology the serious object of 
their labours, when they study the animal more 
and the shells less, every accession to our know- 
ledge of this branch of natural history can be 
profitably carried to the genera! account of 
science, and will redound to the permanent hon- 
our of the discoverer ; whilst those who encum- 
ber the path of science by their contests for 
priority in inventing names for shells will ac- 
quire no lasting reputation, even when they 
succeed in establishing their claims. 

From Macon to Milledgeville we had thirty 
miles of bad road over a red clay exceedingly 
cut up. This town is situated on a hill near 
the Oconnee River, the east branch of the Ala- 
tamalia, and is, like the rest, an open, airy 
place, with fine broad streets. We were now 
in a part of the old colony of Georgia before it 
•vvas enlarged by acquisitions from the Creeks. 
Timber was comparatively scarce, the soil a 
<]eep red earth, still good for cotton, and the 
iields larire and under good fence. On descend- 
'ing a hill about ten miles from this place, I 

F found gneiss near a small stream, with veins 
<of porphyritic granite resembling that upon 
which the Chesterfield coal-field, in Virginia, 
reposes, which is of the same character as the 
granite of Shapfell, in England. The weather 
was singularly hot for January, Fahrenheit 
showing 74° upon the scale at noon. From 
lience we made twenty-three miles to Sparta, a 
pleasing rural-looking place, built upon a hill, 
and containing some neat houses, with a very 
good sort of tavern. The roads were very bad 
the next twenty-three miles to Warrenton ; we 
crossed the Ogeechee River at about half the 
distance, and proceeding all night through 
wretched roads for forty-two miles, reached 
Anoiista, on the Savannah River, a muddy 
stream about 200 yards wide, which is the 
boundary betwixt the States of South Carolina 

and Georgia. This is a long, straggling town, 
containing perhaps 4000 inhabitants ; with a 
main street at least a mile long, and full of 
small stores and low taverns. All these south- 
ern towns are very much alike : there is always 
one endless street filled with small linen-dra- 
pers' shops or stores, the owners of which call 
themselves merchants. In some of these stores 
ready-made clothes are sold, in others boots 
and shoes ; a few of them contain the wares 
of ironmongers, ar,d perhaps one or two of them 
are small book stores. These, with at least 
one hundred dram-shops and dirty taverns, are 
what is to be seen in one of these long streets, 

crowded with men all upon a level in greedi- 
ness and vulgarity ; in short, there is nothing 
to detain a traveller who is in search of any- 
thing that is rare and interesting, but everything 
conspires to make him anxious to take to the 
roads again, be they ever so bad. 

We crossed the Savannah over a bridge to a 



I dirty suburb called Hamburgh, the termination 
of a railroad 140 miles long, from Charleston, 

' on the Atlantic. A great part of this railway, 
which is a single line, is raised, not on an em- 
bankment, but on piles from six to twenty feet 
high from the ground, standing upon stilts, as it 
were, and must be singularly dangerous. At 
the end of the first stage we passed a well-con- 
structed inclined plane about half a mile long. 
Almost the whole distance of eighty mdes from 
Augusta to Cuhnnhia is over a pine and sand 
country of the poorest character, the latter part 
of it being a dead flat. One mile from Colum- 
bia we crossed a long wooden bridge, thrown 
over the Congaree at the confluence of the Sal- 
uda and Broad Rivers, both of which have their 
sources in the mountains of North Carolina. 
Not far from the bridge this river falls over 
gneiss rocks penetrated by granitic veins, and 
a short railway is laid from the bridge up a gen- 
tle acclivity to the town, which contains about 
4000 inhabitants. The streets, like those of 
the other towns, ar-e broad, and planted with 
that gaudy tree, the Pride of China. {Melia Aza- 
derach). Having travelled several nights in that 
exposed and most comfortless and lumbrous 
contrivance, an American stage-coach, I deter- 
mined to rest a day or two here and see a ie\f 
acquaintances I had in the neighbourhood ; so 
being fortunate enough to get a private room 
at the tavern, I proceeded to spruce myself up 
a little, a thing I had not done since I left New 
Orleans. 



CHAPTER XLIV. 

The Gentlemen of America— The TariflF and Nullification 
—Wise conduct of Mr. Clay and Mr. Calhoun— Warlike 
Propensities of an Octogenarian Philosopher— A black 
Animal chained on the roof of a Stage-coach— Ti\e char- 
acter of the White Man elevated by the Slavery of the 
Black one. ^ 

CoLUMBi.i, the capital of South Carolina, is 
pleasantly situated, and in some of its airy streets 
there are genteel-looking houses, which at once 
indicate a respectable state of society ; but I was 
very much surprised to find the capital of the 
State built on a piece of ground so barren, that 
even grass will scarcely grow upon it. Having 
walked through the streets to see what the town 
looked like, I rambled in the afternoon about two 
or three miles oif to call upon Dr. Cooper, whom 
I had met before in New York. This gentle- 
man, always conspicuous, had made himself 
particularly so of late, in the agitation of the 
NidUJlcMion question, which the Tarili' law had 
given birth to, and which had so nearly brought 
fhe State of South Carolina into hostile collision 
with the power of the federal government under 
the administration of Preside'nt Jackson. Al- 
though the excitement — which at one time 
threatened such fatal consequences — had been 
calmed by the judicious conduct of Mr. Clay 
and Mr. Calhoun in agreeing to the Compromise 
Act, yet the same question is of such vital con- 
sequence to South Carolina, and so important to 
the Northern manufacturers, that it i-s always 
liable to be agitated again. The leading plant- 
ers of South Carolina are generally men who, 
having inherited large estates with numerous^ 
slaves born upon them, and received liberal ed- 
ucations, consider themselves, not without some 
TQAson, the gentlemen of America; looking down 



156 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



upon the trading conamunities in the Northern 
States, where slavery does not exist, with that 
habitual sense of superiority which men born to 
command — and above all others slaveholders — 
always cherish when they are placed in compe- 
tition with men engaged in mercantile pursuits, 
whom they consider to be, by the nature of their 
avocations, incapable of rising to their level: to 
this feeling, the seeds of which are planted in 
infancy, is added a distrust sometimes amount- 
ing to hatred. 

The planter, although his crops of cotton and 
rice often produce him an annual income far ex- 
ceeding that of the cultivator of the North, and 
tempt him to live in a style corresponding to the 
rank he believes himself to hold in society, yet 
is frequently less independent than the opulent 
merchant or farmer he undervalues, his annual 
expenditures being large and certain, whilst his 
returns are somewhat precarious. He has per- 
haps to feed and clothe several hundred slaves, and 
it is not convenient for him to reduce his style of 
living: so that not unfrequently the merchant at 
the north, who is his agent, and to whom he con- 
signs his productions for sale, sends him an ac- 
count current, where, instead of small charges be- 
ing deducted from large returns, he finds the ad- 
vances made to him in money, the bills for feeding 
and clothing his slaves, his wines and luxuries, 
and other charges, swelled to an amount far ex- 
ceeding the sum-total that his crops have sold 
for; perceiving himself therefore the debtor and 
quasi slave of the man he despises, his pride, his 
interest, and his passions, all combine to rouse 
his indignation: at such moments the agitated 
planter is easil}' led to follow in the wake of any 
politicians who flatter him with the prospect of 
red ress. 

When the politicians and manufacturers of the 
Northern States combined to enact the tariff of 
1828, "for \.\i2 protection of home manufactures," 
alleging that the productions of the Southern 
States were admitted without competition into 
the ports of England, a general feeling of resist- 
ance arose in the State of South Carolina: the 
duties now to be levied upon those articles of Brit- 
ish manufacture which the planter was compell- 
ed to purchase for the use of his slaves, must 
necessarily greatly augment his expenditures, 
and to this was added the apprehension of another 
evil of still greater magnitude, viz. that Great 
Britain might lay retaliatory duties upon his ex- 
ports, and gradually look to other countries to 
be supplied with them. Politics and interests 
therefore combined in South Carolina to rouse 
the people into a resistance to that law, and the 
government of the State taking the lead, finished 
by declaring that when the United States gov- 
ernment manifestly exceeded its powers — of 
which fact they held that the suffering State 
must be the best judge — every single State had a 
natural and constitutional right to "nullify its 
acts." 

Armies now were raised, and everything was 
preparad for resistance, as much as if a foreign 
invader was about to enter their territory. Such 
was the indomitable spirit that appeared to pre- 
vail, and the determination not to permit the rev- 
enue laws of the United States to be executed in 
South Carolina, that if President Jackson, as it 
was believed he was disposed to do, had attempt- 
ed to execute them by force, there is no doubt 
that a furious civil war would have raged in the 
State, of which the consequences — let the ques- 
tionable result have been either one way or the 



other — must have been signally fatal ; for no one 
can predict the ultimate consequences of giving 
military habits to a numerous slave population, 
which must upon so fatal a contingency have 
unavoidably taken place. Happily for the coun- 
try, the wise compromise which took place, the 
efiect of which was to provide for the gradual 
reduction of those oppressive tariff duties to an 
amount limited by the wants of the public reve- 
nue, and not by the demands fyr protection, avert- 
ed this great danger. Mr. Clay, whom the pro- 
tection-party claimed as their leader, and Mr. 
Calhoun, the. avowed leader of the Nullifying 
party, patriotically concurred in making sacrifi- 
ces in favour of peace, by carrying the measure 
called the Compromise Act through the national 
legislature. 

No man had taken a more energetic and ani- 
mated part in this dangerous agitation than the 
veteran Dr. Cooper, now approaching his eighti- 
eth year, and one of the most remarkable men 
that have emigrated from England — his native 
country — to the United States. Cooper was a 
philoshpical tleve of the famous Dr. Priestley, 
and finding that everything in England was too 
long or too short for him, he passed over to the 
"asylum of oppressed humanity," with the in- 
tention of making it his home for life. He was 
a man of singular versatility of talent, of i.nceas- 
ing activity, and great natural benevolence. His 
attainments were various; there was nothing in 
law, physic, divinity, chemistry, or general sci- 
ence that he had entirely overlooked; and al- 
though some of his screws were uncommonly 
loose, particularly his religious ones, he was ca- 
pable of being a very useful member of society, 
and was always — as such a man with so much 
experience must be — a most agreeable and in- 
structive companion. But that which above all 
things made the Doctor happy, and which wher- 
ever he went seemed to be his study to provide 
a quantum sufficit of, was persecution, and this 
he was fortunate enough to find even in Ameri- 
ca. On his arrival his talents procured him an 
official appointment of some distinction in Penn- 
sylvania, but he soon contrived to be driven from 
it, and to be fined heavily into the bargain. At 
length he took refuge iti South Carolina, was 
well received by the leading planters there, and 
placed in the honourable and lucrative situation 
of President of the College in the town of Co- 
lumbia. { 

Here the Doctor might have flourished in re- 
nown, and have pursued a career of usefulness, 
but the current was too gentle for him, and pre- 
ferring troubled waters, he began to insinuate 
that it was unworthy of free men to be educated 
in religious prejudices, and ended by openly de- 
nouncing the Christian religion. If there were 
a few persons in the State to whom this was 
agreeable, there were a great many to whom it; 
was very ofl^ensive. The friends of tlie college 
had hoped that in placing an amiable person 
with such various attainments at its head, he 
would have possessed suflicient judgm.ent tO' 
have looked to the interests of the institution, 
and would have endeavoured to support that 
which supported him. The sons of persons en- 
tertaining difl^erent opinions both in^religion and 
politics were to be educated liere, and it was ex- 
pected by all that though theology was not to be 
a principal branch of study, yet a reverence for 
religion would be inculcated; it was soon made 
evident, however, that anything but this was in- 
stilled into the young minds entrusted to hi& 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



157 



care, ami parents immediately began to withdraw 
tlieir cliitdren from an institution where the 
Christian religion was openly derided. The 
Ducior having succeeded in driving away all 
thoi«3 who were not disposed to imbibe his irre- 
ligious opinions, proceeded to practise the same 
tactics with those who woukl not agree with 
him in defying the government of the country, 
its established by law, in regard to Nullification ; 
so that his students became at length very few 
in numbers, and not long before I reached Co- 
lumbia, the friends of the college, to save it from 
total ruin, caused the Doctor to be removed from 
his situation. In doing this they acted with 
great delicacy and generosity, creating for him 
a sort of sinecure office, under which, unless he 
again oscillates out of his orbit, he may enjoy a 
very competent salary for the rest of his life. 

1 Ibund Doctor Cooper in a pleasant little 
Tilla, which the ladies of his family had fur- 
nished with a great many comforts. He re- 
ceived me very cordially, and although about 
eighty years old, began to talk with wonderful 
.energy and vivacity upon a variety of subjects. 
The Compromise Act, however, was uppermost 
dn the Doctor's mind, and I soon saw that he 
did not like it at all, for it had extinguished 
all the eloquence, patriotism, and achievement 
which Nullification might have brought forth at 
SL future day. Upon my congratulating him upon 
ihat measure, and the happy consequences which 
"would flow from it, he rose from his easy chair, 
and although almost bent double like a hook, he 
seized the hearth-brush, and with his eyes full 
of fire, and wielding the brush as if it were a 
broadsword, denounced the Compromise Act as 
an ignoble measure which he never could ap- 
prove of; declared that the Nullifiers were quite 
in the wrong to make peace with the Union 
men (their opponents in South Carolina), and 
that it would have been a much better course 
for them to have taken the field against General 
Jackson, and have fought all the power he could 
have brought against them. "We have lost a 
fine opportunity, sir, of carrying this State to the 
highest renown," said this little crooked octo- 
genarian; and then giving General Jackson a 
desperate cut with the hearth-brush, he went 
back to his easy chair again. 

I was perfectly delighted with the vivacity of 
the old gentleman, and never passed a pleasanter 
•evtr-niiie;. At tea we were joined by some very 
well-bred neighbours, amongst whom were sever- 
al ladies, to whom the Doctor, constantly paddling 
about amongst them, paid hisli vely compliments, 
and then returned to his chair to laugh and dis- 
pute about chemistry, geology, law, and, above 
all, religion and politics. Whatever side of the 
qnesii in he took he maintained it with wonder- 
ful energv, and always with pertinacity when 
he could not do it with reason, as if it was too 
Intp in life for him to be convinced about such 
matters. 

The next morning 1 visited the college, which 
h;id the appearance of being very much neglect- 
eil; there was a collection of minerals, but it 
wi- in wretched disorder; indeed everything 
•<(>fined to be out of place. On my return I 
i'^int that some gentlemen, with whom I had 
!'"en previously acquainted, had called upon 
m°, and I willingly accepted an invitation to 
.line with one of them. Our party consisted of 
some gentlemen of the place. Dr. Cooper, and a 
few professors belonging to the college. Some 
of them were very .intelligent men. and hearty 



in their manners. What particularly struck me 
at this dinner was the total want of caution and 
reserve in the ultra opinions they expressed 
about religion and politics; on these topics their 
conversation was not at all addressed to me, but 
seemed to be a resumption of the opinions they 
were accustomed to express whenever they met, 
and upon all occasions. A stranger dropped in 
amongst them from the clouds would hardly 
have supposed himself amongst Americans, the 
language they used and the opinions they ex- 
pressed were so diametrically opposed to the 
sell-laudatory strain they too generally indulge 
in when speaking of their country or them.selves. 
It was quite new to me to hear men of the better 
class express themselves openly against a re- 
publican government, and to listen to discus- 
sions of great ability, the object of which was 
to show that there never can be a good govern- 
ment if it is not administered by gentlemen. 
Not having shared in the conversation, I ven- 
tured at one time to name Mr. Madison, at 
whose house I was in the habit of making au- 
tumnal visits, as a person that would have 
ranked as a gentleman in any country; but I 
was immediately stopped by a declaration that 
he was a false hypocritical dissembler, that he 
was one of the favourites of the Sovereign Peo- 
ple, and one of the worst men the country had 
produced. At a period of less excitement such 
a sentiment would not have been tolerated, and 
I could not but attribute their present pique 
against this eminent statesman to the inflexible 
opposition he had given to Nullification, which 
went to destroy the efficacy of the constitution 
he had been one of the principal framers of A 
short time after, something very extravagant 
having been said, I could not help asking, in a 
good-natured way, if they called themselves 
Americans yet; the gentleman who had inter- 
rupted me before, said, "If you ask me if I am 
an American, my answer is. No, sir, I am a 
South Carolinian." If the children of these 
Nullifiers are brought up in the same opinions, 
which they are very likely to be, here are fine 
elements for future disunion; lor, imbibing from 
their infancy the notion that they are born to 
command, it will he intolerable to them to sub- 
mit to be, in their own estimation, the drudges 
of the northern manufacturers, whom they de- 
spise as an inferior race of men. Even now 
there is nothing that a southern man resents so 
much as to be called a Yimkee, a term which in 
the Southern States is applied exclusively to the 
New England people, and in quite as sarcastic 
a sense as it is sometimes applied in Europe to 
all citizens of the United States. 

Having secured seats in the mail for the north 
on the 22nd of January, we were standing near 
the stage-coach at the door of the tavern waiting 
the arrival of the mail from Charleston, when it 
drove up with a negro male slave, about thirty 
years old, chained fiat on the roof, the poor devil 
having been overtaken by his master after an 
inefl"ectual attempt to run away. 

It happened, oddly enough, that a gentleman 
whom I had met at dinner, and with whom I had 
had more than once a good deal of conversation, 
having called to bid me good bye, was at this 
very moment talking rather earnestly with me 
on the subject of slavery. Admiring his intelli- 
gence and the liberality of his sentiments on 
other subjects, I had ventured to observe — what 
I had cautiously atistained from doing when in 
society — that it" detracted very much from the 



158 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



estimation in which the gentlemen of South 
Carolina otherwise deserved to be held, that no 
relaxatiot. was to be found in their opinions 
about slavery, and that it seemed to me their 
stale could never be as prosperous as the north- 
ern states, as long as they held men in bondage, 
and relied eniirely upon slave labour. The line 
of argument he took up in answer to my obser- 
vation was really very curious, and deserves to 
be recorded. 

He observed that the working of the institution 
of slavery (so he dignified this bondage) was not 
understood out of the slave states ; that it elevated 
the character of the master, by comparison, made 
him jealous of his own, and the natural friend of 
public liberty ; that the dignity of character which 
had belonged to southern gentlemen, from Wash- 
ington down to the present times, was unknown 
to the men of the northern states, and must al- 
ways be, since one effect of their laws and cus- 
toms was to cause a division of the estate of 
every head of a family, on his decease, equally 
amongst his children, and so compel every one 
of them to reconstruct a fortune as well as he 
could; that every body knaw this generated a 
rapacious spirit, and made the accumulation of 
wealth the sole object of every man's life. This 
was not the case in South Carolina, where the 
planter, whatever might be his transactions, was 
careful not to encroach upon the character of 
the gentleman ; and he adduced Mr. Calhoun, 
the leader of the Nullifying party, as an eminent 
instance of the justice of what he said. This 
gentleman, he remarked, was a planter and a 
slaveholder, who in private life never had been 
known to be guilty of a mean action, and in pub- 
lic life had never omitted an opportunity of vin- 
dicating the constitution from the attempts of 
sordid persons to pervert its intentions. For 
these reasons, he said, Mr. Calhoun, independent 
of his great intellectual powers, was universally 
honoured in his native state, and was justly look- 
ed up to bv all as the vigilant guardian of its 
rights. All these great principles of action, he 
added, were developed and strengthened by the 
institution of slavery ; that the slaves were not 
an unhappy race of men; they were well fed, 
well clothed ; and if there had "been a necessity 
for it in the late dispute with the United States 
government, ihe slaves would have shown to a 
man their well-known fidelity to their masters. 

I was struck with this justification of slavery, 
which, notwithstanding its excluding humanity, 
benevolence, and justice from the list of our du- 
ties to others, would seem to qualify white men 
in a very high degree for the enjovment of the 
compulsory labour of men of a diflferent colour. 
If it means any thing, it must mean that every 
man should be a slaveholder in order to the suc- 
cessful development of his own inherent dignity. 

Just at the moment my friend had finished, 
the exception to this fidelitv before noticed drove 
up to where we were talking, chained at full 
length flat upon the topof the stage. I had seen 
turtles, and venison, and wild turkeys, and things 
of that sort, fastened to the top of a stage-coach 
before, but this was the first black man I ever saw 
arranged in that manner. Catching a glimpse 
of him as the stage drove up, I thought it was a 
bear, or some other animal on its way to the 
larder; but in a I'ew minutes they handed him 
down from the top, holding him by the end of his 
chain, exactly as if he had been a baboon, and 
then proceeded to hoist him to the top of the 
stage we were to travel in, and fasten him down 
there just as he had been before. 



CHAPTER XLV. 

Inside and Outside Passengers in chains — Bob Chatwood 
and the Game of All Fours— A Social Bottle— An Over- 
turn in the dark— Reach Charlotte, in North Carolina — 
Description of the Gold Region in North Carolina and 
Virginia— Richmond, in Virginia— The Chesterfield Coal- 
Field — Speculations respecting it. 

I NOW bade adieu to my friend, and pointing to 
the poor fellow in bonds, told him that, since I 
was going to travel with the institution of slavery, 
I hoped 1 should turn out to be a perfect Hamp- 
den before the day was over. He laughed and 
went away, and Mr. T******** and myself took 
our seats in the stage-coach, not in the least 
dreaming of what was now going to occur. We 
were left alone for a few minutes, and I was ru- 
minating upon the fine theory of the person who 
had just gone away, and contrasting it with the 
practical consequences attending the "institu- 
tion," as exemplified over my head, when a num- 
ber of persons came out of the kitchen door of 
the tavern, approached the stage, opened the 
door with something of a bustle, and handed a 
young white man into it, about twenty-five years 
old, with his legs fettered and manacles on his 
hands. This agreeable object took the hind seat 
exactly opposite to me, and after him entered a 
deputy sheriff, in whose custody he was, and a 
number of low vulgar fellows — all seeming very 
much in want of shackles — until the stage was 
full. I was so exceedingly struck with the nov- 
elty of my situation, travel'ling in a stage- coach 
with a black man in chains at the top, and a 
white man chained in the inside, that I could not 
help calling the agent of the stage to the window- 
next to my seat, to ask him if he could not get 
me a yellow man from the mulattos in the street, 
to chain at the bottom. The man laughed heart- 
ily, and gave me the history of my opposite 
neighbour. 

His name was Bob Chatwood, a desperate, 
gambling, dissolute fellow, from his earliest 
years. One of Bob's practices was to persuade 
negroes that he was acquainted with to steal 
whatever they could from their masters, convert 
it into money, and then play with them at all- 
fours, a game some of them are very fond of. 
There was a black amateur, a great adept at 
the game, quite equal to Bob at it; and upon one 
occasion, when they were playing together in a 
shed by the light of an old lamp, the negro won 
every game. Bob lost his teinper, and after 
keeping the black man up almost all night, re- 
fused in the end to pay his losses; but producing 
two silver dollars, told him if he could win them 
he would pay him. Luck still continued on 
Sambo's side, who, having won the game, in- 
stantly snatched up the money and ran off. Bob 
soon overtook him, and in the scuffle which en- 
sued, finding the black man too strong, he ran a 
knife into his throat and mortally wounded the 
poor fellow, who had just strength to get home, 
tell his story, and expire. 

For this offence Bob was tried, and, being a 
white man, great sympathy was manifested in 
his favour. If it had been nothing but an angry 
scuffle between them, he would probably have 
been acquitted, but he had committed the unpar- 
donable sin of playing at cards with a slave for 
stolen property: this was proved against him at 
Chesterville, a town throu^:'.; which we were to 
pass, and he was found guilty of murder. His 
friends, however, had influence to procure a new 
trial beforethesuperiorcourt at Columbia, where 
he had been removed ; but the example was loo 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



159 



dangerous, and the first sentence had just been 
confirmed, and Bob ordered to be hung in April 
next. 

The silence which prevailed in the stage-coach 
for the first mile or two was broken by the dep- 
uty taking a bottle of liquor from his pocket, 
putting it to his mouth, and passing it round, 
when each one, taking his quid of tobacco out 
for an instant, took a swig. Bob took a very 
hearty one, and then kindly passed the bottle to 
me ; who having decHned touching it, the deputy 
extended his arm, took it out of Bob's manacled 
paw, corked it, and replaced it in his pocket. 
They now began to talk politics; all of them 
were Nullifiers except Bob, and Bob was for 
General Jackson, probably thinking that the best 
chance he stood for his life depended upon a suc- 
cessful invasion of the state, and a general clear- 
ing out of the gaols. The bottle continued to 
circulate from time to time; but Bob, finding me 
so unsocial, ceased offering it to me, whether 
from policy or displeasure I could not tell. He 
looked very tiioughtful at times, as if his fate 
was uppermost in his mind ; but he was always 
ready for the bottle, and, alter he had drunk, was 
sometimes livelier than any of them, getting into 
long stories about cock-fighting, and horse-ra- 
cing, and card-playing, that showed he was a 
perfect character in his line. The deputy and 
the other fellows laughed and joked and told their 
stories, treating Bob exactly as if they were Ms 
equals. This agreeable illusion seemed to cheer 
him a little, and to last until the last swig at the 
bottle had ceased to warm him, and until there 
was a momentary silence; then I used to ob- 
serve, especially towards the close of the day, that 
a dreadful change would come over his features, 
as if tiie unfortunate wretch was picturing to 
himself his last moments, when the gallows and 
the hemp were standing ready to receive him. 
They had soon emptied the first bottle, and had 
replenished it at some place where we had chan- 
ged horses; but this too htcame nullified , and then 
the whole party of blackguards seemed disposed 
to sleep, and left me to such reflections as could 
not fail to occupy my mind, shut up as I was in 
a vehicle conveying such a horrid combination 
of beings. 

We had made fifty-five miles, and were dri- 
ving on rather rapidly in the dark, having only 
five miles more to Chesterville, when the stage, 
having got into a deep rut, was suddenly upset 
on the side where I was, and my head coming to 
the hard ground with a violent blow, I received 
a severe contusion. All had now to get out and 
assist to replace the stage on its wheels. The 
black fellow who was chained to the top was ex- 
ceedingly amused with the incident, and got into 
one of his negro fits of laughter; he was tired of 
his recumbent position, and had now, without 
any trouble or hurt, got into a vertical one. We 
could scarce see each other, and an opportunity 
might have occurred of Bob's hiding himself 
away in the woods ; but the deputy and the other 
fellows immediately convinced him that he was 
not quite one of themselves, by lashing him to a 
tree, before they assisted the driver with the 
stage. As for myself, I had such a violent head- 
ache with the blow I had got, that it was impos- 
sible for me to assist them or bear the motion of 
the stage. I determined therefore to walk, dark 
as it was, slowly on to Chesterville, where I ar- 
rived in about two hours and a half, the stage 
coming up with me as I was entering the place. 
Our drive this day was over decomposed fer- 



ruginous slates ; and occasionally, as we drew 
northward, gneiss and greenstone appeared in 
the ravines, with a decomposing rock, which 
looked like elvan, frequent veins and beds of 
which are fi)und in the Gold Region of North 
Carolina, which we were now ap|iroaching. 

From Chesterville, where we left the motley 
crew we had been travelling with, black and 
white, we continued twenty-one miles to York- 
ville, a small village, and pursuing our journey- 
thirty miles to Charlotte, in North Carolina, 
crossed the CtUav-l)a River, which lies halfway 
betwixt these two towns, into that state. It was 
night before we reached Charlotte; and I went 
immediately to bed, suffering severely from the 
contusion 1 had received. 

Feeling myself refreshed by my night's rest, 
and my headache having very much abated, I. 
descended the next morning to a comfortable 
breakfast; and afterwards sallied out to examine 
the neighbourhood, which has acquired a little 
celebrity by the establishment of some mills here, 
for the purpose of crushing the gold ore which 
abounds so much in this part of the country. 

What is called the Gold Region in the United 
States, may be described as a metalliferous bell; 
extending in a south-west direction from the Po- 
tomac River to the heads of the Talapoosa, ia 
the State of Alabama, running: in its course 
through the States of Virginia, North Carolina, 
South Carolina, and Georgia. The length of 
this belt is about GOOmiles, and it has a mean, 
breadth from its southern to its northern edge of 
about eighty. In every part of this extensive 
line native gold is found in alluvial deposits, and 
in various streams, whilst the contiguous rocky- 
strata abound in quartzose veins more or less- 
auriferous. From the nature and position of the^, 
alluvial deposits, the manner in which they are"^ 
sitLiated in relation to the stream, and the gen- 
eral modification which the surface has received 
from one end of the line to the other, it is impos- 
sible to avoid the conclusion tha-t there has been, 
at some remote period, a great degradation of 
the ancient surface, and that the metallic and 
stony contents of the alluvial deposits are com- 
posed of the ruins of the old rocks. Nothing i.s 
more common in these deposits than to find 
masses cif quartz with small lumps of native 
gold imbedded in them, resembling in every par- 
ticular others which are taken from veins now 
in place, the heaviest masses being always found 
nearest to the auriferous strata, and the particles 
of gold dust at the greatest distance fram them. 

The auriferous quartzose veins in the gold 
region are singularly abundant, and are either 
found in a formation of which talcose slate is 
the characteristic rock — as in Viiginia — or are 
sheathed with talcose slate, and hold an almost 
vertical position in elvan beds and beds of ferri>- 
ginous .slates, as in North Carolina ; so that tal- 
cose rocks characterize the entire Gold Regiou 
from one extreme to the other. These talcose 
rocks are continued north from the Potomac, 
running in the same north-east direction through, 
the northern portion of the United States to the 
River St. Lawrence, south of Q.uebec. I have 
traced them through the whole of this extended 
line, and although gold is not found in every 
part of it as on the south side of the Potomac, 
yet it is eminently metalliferous in c()i)per and 
lead, and native gold has been found uj'.on it in 
various localities even as far as the extreme 
point to which it has been traced. Asa metal- 
liferous deposit it is, therefore, one of the most 



160 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



Temarkable geological features of the continent 
of North America, running parallel to, and in 
some parts Ibrming a portion of, the great ele- 
vated Alleghany belt. 

The gold region in Virginia is a singularly 
beauiiiul country, especially in a western direc- 
tion from the town of Fredericsburg, on tlie 
Rapahannock River. When the discovery of 
this metal there began to be first talked of some 
years ago, I passed a great deal of my time in 
ihose lovely woodland districts, where the whole 
country is thrown into hills gracefully rounded 
by the action of water, and where the clear 
streams in the valleys run through the alluvial 
■deposits, consisting of the ruins of the rocks 
which had once united the hills by a more ele- 
vated surface. With a clean room to retire to 
at a settler's residing far in the woods, and 
abundance of milk and bread, and bacon, and 
tea and sugar to comfort myself with when I re- 
turned at night fatigued with my day's excur- 
sion, the time stole away most agreeably and 
rapidly. Many a time, when wandering by one 
of those murmuring brooks, and listening to the 
rich and varied melody of the mocking-bird, 
whose favourite breeding-place is in these groves, 
have I dipped out the auril'erous gravel, washed 
it in a pan that I carried about with me, and 
thus collected in the course of the day native 
-gold of the value of from five to ten shillings. 
In a i'ew of the streams the grains were very 
abundant, and I have known some of those per- 
sons who then began to follow gold-finding as an 
occupation, collect as much as the value of a 
guinea or two in the course of a day. 

"Upon one occasion I visited an extensive allu- 
vial deposit in the county of Louisa, where great 
success had attended the operations, some per- 
sons having unexpectedly come upon an' extra- 
ordinary rich bed of auriferous gravel, from 
which in six days they extracted native gold, in 
grains, of the value often thousand dollars. This 
Ireasuie, when I saw it, had a very odd appear- 
ance, for the proprietors had put it into glass 
botiles; it was a large sum, and people at a dis- 
tance were not disposed to believe so much gold 
had been found there; but there it was, I saw it 
weighed, and could entertain no doubt upon the 
subfect. Soon after this discovery, the vein from 
whence it was derived was also found, consist- 
ing of a pale porous quartz, thickly studded with 
knobs and lamina of native gold, and upon com- 
paring specimens of it — which I was permitted 
to do— with the contents of the bottles, I found 
that many of the pepitna, or knobs of gold, cor- 
responded in form, although the alluvial gold 
was rounded and worn by the action of water. 

I also visited another verv interesting place. 
Some children playing on the side of a hill, on 
pulling up some bunches of grass, found numer- 
ous particles of gold mixed up with the earth, 
which inducing their father to dig into it, he 
came to a very extensive pocket or cavity, at 
the bottom of which was an immense quantity 
of yellitw earthy matter (decomposed felspar) 
with pepitas in it, some of the finest specimens 
of which I purchased for my cabinet. He now 
got two or three hired negroes to assist him, and 
this stuff was wheeled to the brook which ran at 
the foot of the hill and washed. Although the 
operation was conducted in a very wasteful 
manner, he nevertheless sometimes obtained 
gold to the amount of one thousand dollars in 
the course of the day. The last time I visited 
liis mine I was sorry to find him under very 



changed circumstances, for having extracted ah 
the loose earth from the pocket, he had made his 
assistants dig various adits at random into the 
hill without propping the roofs up, in conse- 
quence of which a ponderous mass of earth gave 
way and killed one of his hired negroes, whose 
full value he was obliged to pay to the proprie- 
tor. This untoward event had created a preju- 
dice against his mind, and, as he told me, "had 
turned all the luck against him." I found, how- 
ever, that the true cause of the reverses which 
overtook him was more deeply seated than this, 
for in his confidence in the resources of the mine, 
he had, a short time before, purchased the fee- 
simple of the place of the owner, had paid him 
on account almost all the cash he had obtained 
for his gold, and had mortgaged the place for the 
remainder. Having no ready money left, and 
the mine requiring both skill and capital — nei- 
ther of which he possessed — to carry it on, the 
mortgagee took advantage of his necessity and 
proceeded to foreclose the mortgage; so that he 
was in a likely way to lay down his character 
of gold-miner and go back to his first occupation 
of gold-finder by washing gravel at the brooks. 

The general direction of the auriferous veins 
of quartz in this part of Virginia is north-east 
and south-west — a fact which appears to identi- 
fy their origin with that of the great belt of the 
AUeghanies: they are very numerous, and oc- 
cur in some places every two or three hundred 
yards, often branching out into narrow ramifica- 
tions, and uniting again into one vein from four 
to six feet broad. The veins go down almost 
vertically, and upon being broken up are gener- 
ally found loaded with ferruginous matter, or 
crystals of sulphuret of iron containing thin la- 
mina of gold. Near the surface these crystals 
are very much decomposed, and often present 
particles of gold lying free amongst a quantity 
of oxide of iron. In some instances the cry^tal- 
line structure of the pyrites is beautifully ex- 
hibited, the incipient decomposition of the crys- 
tal showing the complex laminated structure of 
the interior, where bright lamina of native gold 
are seen leaning against the parietes, with trans- 
parent crystals of sulphur formed from the de- 
composition of the sulphuret. In some instan- 
ces the veins of quartz contain no sulphuret of 
iron, but present, on being fractured, knobs and 
particles of native ffold, which form a brilliant 
contrast to the pure whiteness of the quartz. In 
almost every case, however, where shafts have 
been sunk upon a vein, the quartzose matter de- 
creases in quantity as the vein descends, and at 
a mine in Orange Countv which I visited, the 
contents of the vein became more and more py- 
ritical as it descended, until, at a depth of 120 
feet, no more quartzose matter appeared, and the 
entire vein was composed of a finely granulated 
sulphuret of iron. Although there are a few 
known localities in Virginia where the native 
gold is alloyed with silver, and many where tel- 
lurium abounds in the veins, yet the native gold 
is generally very little alloyed, rising as high as 
twenty-three or twenty-three and a half carats, 
which is gold nearly in its pure state. 

Through the kindness of Mr. Bissel, an intel- 
ligent and experienced gold-miner, who has su- 
perintended the operation of the gold-mills in the 
vicinity of Charlotte, I had an opportunity of 
examining the ores of this part of the State of 
North Carolina. Those which are now broken 
at the Charlotte Mills are brought from a mine 
at some distance called Capp's, which in com- 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



161 



pany with Mr. Bissel I visited, and went down 
the shaft that has been sunk to a depth of Hid 
feet. The quartz vein here was sheathed vviili 
a case of lalcose slate, and the elvan rocks 
through which it descended, although in some 
places hard, were very prone to decomposition. 
The gold was everywhere associated with iron, 
and seldom visible. Near to this 1 saw an in- 
stance of a flat vein or floor of auriferous quartz, 
-which seemed in its progress from below, when 
in a semiliquid state, to have poured itself oni 
right and left, and to have completely covered 
the elvan to a considerable distance. We visit- 
ed also another vein which had been opened, in 
one part of which specks of gold appeared, bin 
■which was very rich in sulphuret of copper. 
From various copper ores which were shown to 
me, 1 imagine that that metal will hereafter be 
found more productive in North Carolina than 
gold. The ores are unusually rich, and I think 
•will repay those who at some future day may 
cause them to be skilfully treated. At present 
there seems to be no information of this kind in 
the Slate. As to gold-mining, I do not learn that 
any perscm has become enriched by it: it is n 
fascinating pursuit and has attracted many, but 
the average value of the ore, as far as I can 
learn, does not p.xceed two shillings and sixpence 
the bushel of lOOUs. ; and whether such ore en 
be extracted from deep mines, brought to the 
surface, broken, triturated, amalgnmaied, and its 
precious material finally incited into bars of pure 
gold, at a profit, is verv doubtful. That some 
localities may yield a fair return for the great 
capital which gold-mining involves is very prob- 
able, and I have se^n some ores that would in- 
spire me vi'iih confidence; but I should as soon 
think of purchasing every ticket in a lottery for 
the sake of securing the great prize, as of expend- 
ing capital in working some of the mines I have 
visited. 

Having passed mv first day here very agree- 
ably and instructively, I sallied out alone on the 
next, and wandered around the neighbourhood, 
in many parts of which are feldsphatic rocks 
chequered with a great number of auriferous 
quartz veins, whilst in particular areas talcose 
and other slates are found loaded with fer- 
ruginous matter. Wherever the ferruginous 
slates occur the soil is red, and where the elvan 
rocks prevail it is dry, sandyish, and has a pale 
arenaceous colou'--, the colour and constitution 
of the soil conspicuously announcing the nature 
of the subjacent rocks. But the most remark- 
able mineral which I have seen in America, 
both on account of its great beauty and its rarity, 
is a singular felspathic dyke of a pale colour, of 
the variety' which the "Germans have named 
Weis.s-stein. but spotted with brown and brown- 
ish black cylindrical or oblong infiltrations, often 
several inches in length, and from the size of a 
pin's head to half an inch in diameter. These, 
in transversal sections, appear more or less in 
the form of orbicular spots in proportion as the 
slabs are cut parallelly to the horizontal rifts in 
the lock, and somewhat resemble the spots on a 
leopard's skin. They appear to owe their origin 
to infiltrations of oxides of manganese and iron 
in solution, and contain, as well as the mass in 
•which they are enclosed, minute doul)le six-sided 
pyramids of quartz, and small reddish particles, 
probably of the garnet kind.* There is also an- 



* I broiiffht a ina«riiifinent specimen of this rock to Eng- 
land in 18.'?^. weighing about SOOlbs. ; and my friend Dr. 
X 



other variety in the same dyke, perhaps not less 
beautiful, where the infiltrations have uniformly 
taken the dendritic form. The dyke is very ex- 
tensive, and is a short half-hour's walk from the 
village of Charlotte. 

At midnight on the 26th, we got again into the 
stage and drove to a small place called Lexing- 
ton to breakfast, passing through the town of 
Salisbury and crossing the Yadkin River on our 
way. Tliis part of the United States, like many 
other mineral regions, is not particularly fertile: 
some pretty -situai ions occur here and there but 
the country is often barren and has a homely 
appearance compared with parts of the Gold 
Region in Virginia. The settlers in this part 
of North Carolina seem to be a quiet old-fashion- 
ed people, contented with little, and not at all 
disposed to trouble themselves with the mania 
of internal improvements, or even to practice 
any but the most primitive methods of preparing 
their food. The richest lands in the State lie 
more towards the Atlantic coast, and upon the 
margins of some of the rivers; but I have always 
heard that they are exceedingly unhealthy, and 
should suppose so from the sallow, languid ap- 
pearance of the people I have occasionally seen 
from that quarter. 

At Lexington I heard of some bituminous coal 
that lay to the south on Deep River, and should 
have visited the locality if 1 could have procured 
a conveyance there. I determined, however, to 
revisit the coal-field of Chesterfield in Virginia, 
with which it is not improbable it may have a 
geological connection. From Lexington we 
went to Greensborough, and thence to Danville 
upon the River Dan, one of the head branche.s 
of the Roanoke River. 

Here we crossed into the State of Virginia, 
but being in the early part of the morning the 
circumsiance was not adverted to, until, about 
daylight, stopping at a tavern to change horses 
and breakfast, and coming into the room from 
the well, I was so exceedingly surprised at see- 
ing on the table a great variety of beautiful-look- 
ing bread, made both from fine wheaien flower 
and Indian corn, that I exclaimed, " Bless me, 
we must be in Virginia!" The mistress of the 
house laughed when I explained to her that I 
had not seen any good bread since I left New 
Orleans, and that I knew I must be in Virginia 
as soon as I saw that upon her table. This is 
strictly true of Virginia bread, which is made up 
into so many forms, and is so white, and light, 
and excellent, that it is impossible, with the aid 
of the good milk to be found in almost every 
house, to make a bad repast. 

These parts of Virginia, like the correspond- 
ing midland countries of North Carolina, are 
rather barren, and consequently are poorly set- 
tled. We passed no village of any consequence 
until we reached Cartersville, on James River, 
a poor woe-begone place named after one of the 
old distinguished families of Virginia. On our 
way here I observed nothing in all the ravines 
we passed — for there the stnUa are usually laid 
bare — but the usual primary rocks that occupy 
the area lying between the tide waters of the 
Atlantic arid the mountains. Gneiss, traversed 
bv broad granitic veins, hornblende slates, sien- 
itic rocks, in many beautiful varieties, were 
constantly alternating with each other. 



Tfnrkland pronounrins it an unique, I presented it to the 
British Museum, where, under the direrlion »f Mr. Konig, 
it has been made into two very remarkable tablets. 



162 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



At Cartersville I succeeded in making an ar- 
rangement which enabled me to deviate from the 
mail-stage route and get lo Richmond, the capi- 
tal of the State of Virginia. The upper part of 
this town is advantageously situated upon a hill 
which commands a fine view of the James River 
and the adjacent country, a circumstance which 
forms some analogy to the situation of Rich- 
mond-on-Thames in England, and has suggested 
the name it bears. A few pretty situations, and 
cheerful villa-looking houses built in this quar- 
ter, make at first a favourable impression upon 
travellers; but the lower town, which swarms 
with negro coal-heavers, is about one of the dirt- 
iest places in America. Being at the head of 
tide-water navigation — which terminates here at 
the Falls, where the stream breaks so beautifully 
over the primary rocks— some fossiliferous de- 
posits of considerable extent are found on the 
banks of the river. The hill upon which the 
court-house stands seems to be formed of a con- 
geries of minute fossils and casts of moUusca; 
but of these, and the extensive tertiary and sub- 
cretaceous beds farther down James River, 
which were visited by me in 183-2, 1833, I defer 
saying anything at present, being desirous of 
confining my attention exclusively to the coal- 
deposits that lie between the tide-water districts 
and the Alleghanies, of which those in the Rich- 
mond district have been regularly worked, and 
which disclose phenomena deserving the notice 
of geologists.* 

I had already, when visiting my friends in the 
year 1832, in this part of Virginia, traced the 
out-croppings of the coal veins in the Richmond 
district at various points, lying from north-east 
to south-west, a course which seems to be in 
harmony with the magnetic direction of the 
principal mineral phenomena on this continent. 
The Appomaiiox River, which empties into 
James River a few miles below Petersburg, ap- 
peared to be its limit to the south ; and the out- 
crops had not been traced farther to the north 
than the country betwixt the heads of the Chiek- 
ahominy and the Pamunkey rivers, giving an 
apparent length to this coal-field of about thir- 
ty miles. Of its breadth the indications were 
more imperfect, and consisted principally in the 
difference of character betwixt the sedimentary 
grits and shales lying on the surface of the 
ground, and the soil derived from the decom- 
posed primary rocks of the surrounding coun- 
try : it probably, however, has a maximum 
breadth of fifteen miles. As to the depth of the 
basin, it of course varies with the conformation 
of its granitic bottom and sides. In Mr. Heath's 
Maidenhead mine, the coal is taken from a 
magnificent seam near thirty feet thick, at a depth 
of about 400 feet; and in other places the work- 
ings are carried on at a depth of even 600 feet. 
The shafts which have been sunk are at some 
distance from the outcrop, and are carried down 
upon calculations proper to intersect the veins 
and cut them out advantageously. 

I believe I was the first to notice— in a com- 
munication to the Geological Society of London 
in 1828— th it there was an apparent deficiency 
in North A merica of twenty one important stra- 

* I would refer those who are desirous of seeing many 
interesting ilel;tils of tins coal-fieUi presented in a faithful 
and instructive manner, to nn able paper on the subject by 
Mr. Richard C. Taylor, in "Transactions of the Geological 
Society of Pennsylvania," vol. i.. 1835. The great experi- 
ence and mnture judgment of that gentleman, in matters re- 
lating to the structure of coal-fields, are highly appreciated 
Loth in Europe and America. 



ta of European rocks, estimated to contain a ge- 
ological thickness of upwards of 5000 feet, com- 
prehending all the beds from the Exeter red con- 
glomerate, to the Weald clay, both inclusive 
and that, consequently, the coal measures came' 
at once to the surface; as in the instances on 
the banks of the Potomac, above Cumberland, 
where the broad seams of bituminous coal lie 
exposed in the sides of the hills far above the 
level of the river; on the Ohio, in the neighbour- 
hood of Pittsburg; o-n the Mononghahela; on 
the Kentucky River; and in many other situa- 
tions. In all these localities the coal-fields con- 
form to their place in the geological series of 
rocks belonging to England, having sedimentary 
strata beneath them. But in the Richmond dis- 
trict, where the country is level, and the coal 
comes equally to the surface, the mineral being 
found at great depths, with no sedimentary beds 
beneath it, is consequently in an extensive basin 
or chasm of primary rocks. And such is proved, 
to be the case upon an examination of the rocks 
through which the shafts aie sunk, and those upon 
which the whole contents of the basin repose. 

By the kind attentions of Mr. Heath, I re- 
ceived every facility for the examination of his 
coal-works, and a list of all the beds overlying; 
the coal. Specimens of these were also given 
me, consisting of sandstones exceedingly mica- 
ceous, of sandy grits, of carbonaceous and argil- 
laceous shales of various colours more or less- 
conglomerated, and of every variety of sedimen- 
tary matter derived from the destruction of the 
older rocks, including fragments of crystals of 
felspar. The coal itself lies upon a coanse gran- 
ite of the porphyritic kind, containing great 
quantities of red crystals of felspar, resembling 
the Shapfell granite in England. That the bot- 
tom of this basin is of a rugged character, is ev- 
ident from the fact of huge knobs of the granite 
frequently protruding themselves above the coal,, 
which lies betwixt these knobs in such thick 
masses as to induce an opinion that at some time 
or other it has been in a pasty or semi-fluid state, 
and has been compressed into every cranny of 
the chasm by the pressure of at least 400 feet of 
sedimentary matter. All the coal seams in the 
basin which have hitherto been worked, compre- 
hending a thickness said to be of from fifty ta 
sixty feet, lie beneath this enormous weight. 

The extraordinary spectacle which this coal 

basin presents suggests many reflections, both in 

regard to the origin of that mineral, the ancient 

state of the surface of the earth in this part of 

North America, and the period of time requisite 

to bring the basin into its present condition. 

Some eminent geologists have entertained the 

opinion that the vegetable matter represented in 

coal seams did not grow where it is found, but 

that it is a deposit derived from forest trees and 

plants, deracinated by violent inundation, and 

drifted into estuaries ; analogous to the case of 

the great deposit of lignite at Bovey Heathfield, 

in Devonshire, which was probably removed 

from the neighbouring uplands of Dartmoor, not 

earlier than the conclusion of the tertiary period;. 

j or to the ca.se of the great rafis on Red River,, 

: which have been described in this (our. That 

I many deposits of coal may have had an origin 

': of this kind is probable ; but I am now more 

than ever inclined to the opinion I long ago ex- 

pres.sed, that the American coal-fields are to be 

accounted for in a very different manner, and 

which, I think, is less obnoxious to the charge 

I of being hypothetical. The considerations upon 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



163 



-which this theory is founded may be thus st 



ated. 



* My attention having been drawn away of late years 
from geological pursuits, I may, for aught 1 know to tlie 
contrary, be urging the refutation of the drifting theory, 
when it is no longef maintained. That was not the case 
certainly when 1 first publicly expressed luy objections to it 
in 1829, 1831). In the year 1829, when the science of geol- 
ogy was regarded with very little favour in the United 
•States, I delivered a course of geological lectures in the 
city of New York, for the benefit of the Lyceum of Natural 
History, an excellent .society, in that city, conducted by 
Ameriran gentlemen of great intelligence, which had strug- 
gled with many difficulties in its attempt to support the 
cause of natural science. The favoural)le reception they 
met with induced me to repeat them in the city of Phila- 
delphia in the year 1830. The expensive canal system of 
Pennsylvania having been undertaken for the purpose of 
bringing anthracite coal to that city. I devoted one lecture 
upon this last occasion exclusively to the subject, and took 
a general view of the coal strata of North America, as far us 
I was then acquainted with them. These lectures, being 
the first that ever vrere delivered in the United States on 
the science of geology, were exceedingly pojiular: they 
were published immediately after their delivery ; and to 
show that 1 have been consistent in my opinions, I venture 
to make the following extracts from them :— 

" The great carbonaceous deposits in all parts of the 
■world with which we are acquainted appear to be, as well 
in Europe as in America, in the same part of the geological 
series (these lectures were illustrated by Sir H. de la 
Beetle's Synopsis of the order of Rocks, which had only ap- 
peared the year before, and which was exhibited upon 
these occasions on a very large scale), and to repose either 
upon the conglomerate grits and shales, or some limestones 
of the carboniferous series. From the difference which ex- 
ists betwixt the quality of the anthracite and bituminous 
coals, and from the manner in which the first are found em- 
bedded in the mountains, some persons in America have 
been led to suppose that such coal was of mineral origin ; 
but no one practically conversant with the structure of 
these coal basins, or who has attended to the analysis of 
coal, has been known to express an opinion different from 
that universally entertained by men of science, that coal, 
whether bituminous or non-bituminous, is of vegetable or- 
igin. The coal strata are in fact, whether in the state of 
lignite, anthracite, or bituminous coal, the residua of vege- 
table bodies in various stages of bituminisation, the non-bi- 
tuminous state of the anthracitic varieties being probably 
due to accidental causes. 

" The beginning and progress of vegetable creation has 
been traced with great felicity and beauty of reasoning by 
some eminent per.sons in Europe, amongst whom M. 
Adolphe Brogniart deserves to be conspicuously mention- 
ed : to them we owe the just ideas which now prevail re- 
■specting vegetable life, from the first dawnings of plants of 
the simplest structure, to the solid monarchs of the forests 
of our own times. According to the natural system of bot- 
any, plants are divided into acotyledons withlobeless seeds, 
monocotyledons with seeds having one lobe, and dicotyle- 
dons with seeds of two lobes. The impressions of coal 
plants found in the rocks up to the coal measures inclusive, 
afford no evidence that any plants but those of the simplest 
structure existed at that time : all were of the first kind, 
or acotyledonous ; and the inference to be drawn from that 
fact is that trees having seeds with lobes had not been pro- 
duced up to that period, and that their appearance was re- 
served for a time approaching nearer to the present order 
of nature. We are entitled, therefore, to draw the legiti- 
mate inference that the coal beds of North America are de- 
rived not from such forest-trees as grow in our own times, 
but from the tropical vegetation which the high tempera- 
ture of the globe produced at that period, and from the 
Sphagna or ilosses which grew in the immense areas of the 
low, swampy ccjuntry which represented America when 
this country first emerged from the ocean. We have al- 
ready seen how progressively 'dry land' has been redeem- 
ed from the ocean in every part of the world, and how, by 
causes of a providential character inherent in our planet, it 
has been gradually raised to a height above the water suffi- 
cient for the economical uses of those destined to live upon 
it. Amongst the instances of upheaval of the surface, may 
be conspicuously named the elevation of mountain chains, 
bearing along with them the once horizontal strata with 
their associate minerals, and especially the system of the 
Great Belt of the AUeghanies, which has divided the car- 
boniferous area of the continent by coming up in the centre 
of its axis, and leaving the upraised mineral deprived of its 
bitumen by the influence of the cause which upheaved the 
chain itself. That such was the modification of the sur- 
face at that pec-Uiar period we can appeal to the highly 
inclined state of the formations subjacent to the coal strata 
everywhere, and to the general horizontality of the succeed- 
JOig deposits." 



From the State of Alabama to Pictou, in Nova 
Scotia, the coal-bed.s, with some interruptions, 
can be followed, in a north-east direction, for 
about 1500 miles; and from Richmond, in Vir- 
ginia, to Rock River, in the State of Illinois, ihey 
are continually crossed at right angles for a dis- 
tance of about 800 miles. The vast geographi- 
cal extent of these carboniferous strata would 
seem of itself to exclude the drifting theory ; the 
objections to which are increased by the varying 
nature of the mineral, and the manner in which 
it is brought to the surface, as exhibited upon the 
transverse line. At Richmond we find the coal 
bituminous, and proceeding on that line in a di- 
rection west-north-west to Rock River, we cross 
the great Alleghany belt, where the coal is of the 
anthracite or non-bituminous variety, and con- 
forms to the rock strata in their flexures and 
tilled state; but having passed this belt, the stra- 
ta become horizontal, and the coal assumes the 
same level position. Now these varieties of 
coal found upon this transverse line appear to 
belong to the same part of the geological series, 
for the mineral is always found associated with 
the same conglomerate grit and shale, except in 
a few instances where it lies upon other beds of 
the carboniferous rocks, and excepting the gran- 
ite basin in the Richmond district. No argu- 
ment, therefore, can be raised in favour of the 
drifting theory, from the difference in any of the 
circumstances which separate the anthracitic 
and bituminous beds, althbugh a fair inference 
may be raised that the anthracite coal was lifted 
out of its horizontal position when the great Al- 
leghany belt was upheaved, and that its non-bi- 
tuminous quality is owing to the influence of the 
calorific intensity which accompanied that up- 
heaval. 

The next link in this argument is the period 
at which this great dynamic action took place. 
We have before seen that the entire oolitic se- 
ries is wanting in North America, and that, with 
few exceptions, the coal formations are the latest 
deposits there. Considering, therefore, the high- 
ly inclined state of the subjacent formations, and 
the horizontality of the succeeding deposits in 
every known part of the world, we cannot but 
admit the accordance of these disturbing opera- 
tions of nature at the same period in both hem- 
ispheres, and come to the conclusion that these 
coal-fields were formed before the period of the 
oolitic system, and, consequently, before mono- 
cotyledonous plants or forest trees existed. From 
these data, it would appear more consistent with 
the progressive simplicity of the providential 
plan for enlarging and preparing the surface of 
this planet for the increasing wants of man, to 
suppose that, immediately preceding the eleva- 
tion of the Alleghany belt, the American conti- 
nent had barely emerged from the ocean, and 
was in a general marecageous state. From the 
common tropical character of coal plants, wher- 
ever found, we infer a high degree of tempera- 
ture for the globe even in the northern latitudes, 
and may suppose an extraordinary exuberance 
of growth in the vegetable bodies of that period. 
The plants, therefore, whose impression we find 
in the coal shales, may have grown in the driest 
parts of the nascent land; and where great 
swampy basins or depressions existed, these, as 
the land gradually rose, would become partially 
drained, and be subsequently occupied with 
s.j)hogna, or mosses. The causes which were in 
action at that geological »period are f;ir from be- 
ing understood, but we have abundant evidence, 



164 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



in numerous parts of the world, that portions of 
the surface were subject to frequent submert^ion 
and re-appearance, becoming submarine and 
terrestrial liy turns.'and receiving additional de- 
posits every time they were depressed. In this 
manner a bed of sphagnum, 100 feet deep, being 
submerged, would re<eive a deposit of earthy 
matter that would press it down ; and upon 
coming to the surface again its growth might be 
repeated, and the area be again submitted to 
submersion and receive a new sedimentary de- 
posit. I have seen beds of sphagnum in JNonh 
America probed for sixty feel without coming tu 
the bottom, all of them connected with lakes or 
ponds in a partial state of desiccation, and which, 
if acted upon by similar causes, would end in 
the production Of similar phenomena. This 
probably was the case with the coal basin in the 
Richmond district, the seams there being separ- 
ated by earthy deposits, and the basin itself at 
length filled up with near 100 different beds of 
sedimentary matter. Everything concurs to 
prove that 'these were not rieposiied simultane- 
ously, but that their deposition was effected at 
distinct intervals; for they are not only fVequent- 
ly different in their nature and quality, but in 
various seams of bitii'.ninous shale, some of 
which are at least 100 feet ;:bove the coal, fossil 
coal plants — of which I made an ample collec- 
tion—are found, of great ber.tuy. The dynamic 
periods, then, must have been succeeded by pe- 
riods of repose sufficiently long to have permit- 
ted the growth of equiseta, calamites, and oth- 
er plants, whose impressions are found there. 
These may have grown in the shaly mud where 
their impressions are now seen; but whether or 
not, it is impossible to escape the conclusion 
that immense periods of time are involved in the 
structure of this coal-field. 

It is a matter of great utilitarian consideration 
tor the United States to have it ascertained 
whether this coal-field forms part of a line con- 
necting those carboniferous localities lying far- 
ther to the south in North Carolina, Georgia, 
and ilabama, which run parallel with the coal 
strata to the west. Those in Alabama are well 
known ; but of those in Georgia only obscure 
indications have hi to existed. As far as 1 
have been able to r e myself acquainted with 
them, all these co' .rata trend in the same mag- 
netic direction r .\.E. S.W.; and as they are 
all on the east SK,eof the Alleghany belt, it may 
be that hereafter they may be found to be upon 
the same magnetic line, and to be contempora- 
neous. If this should be the case, the coal-fields 
of North America will exhibit the singularly in- 
structive geolnoical phenomenon of a carbonif- 
erous area, 1500 miles long and 800 miles broad, 
divided into two bituminous districts by an ele 
vated belt, in which the central part of the coal 
has lost its bitumen through the agency of the 
force which lifted it up. 

Having finished my observations at this place, 
I had the happiness of rejoining my family the 
evening of the day of my departure from Rich- 
mond, after accomplishing a tour of at least 
3000 miles. 



CONCLUDING CHAPTER. 

The manner in which Mr. Jefferson has been 
alluded to in the preceding pages, may, perhaps, 
be deemed unjustifiable by those who, unac- 



quainted with the details of the life and charac- 
ter of that celebrated person, have formed their 
opinions of him either from those who have eulo- 
gised him for the conspicuous part he took in en- 
couraging his fellow-countrymen to throw ofl 
their allegiance to Great Britain, or from other 
writers, who, in their admiration of the talents 
for which he was distinguished, have ranked 
him amongst the most conspicuous benefactors 
of human liberty. But, if proofs can be adduced 
that no one, in or out of America, has gone fur- 
ther to poison the ears of men with principles 
■itterly subversive of the well-being of society, 
ihe claims which have been set up for him to 
the gratitude of mankind will appear somewhat 
questionable. 

United as the world is in an unqualified ad- 
miration of the virtues of Washington, it is to- 
tally inconsistent with the respect due to the 
memory of that great man to attempt to place 
Jefl^erson, as has lately been done,* upon a par- 
allel with him; especially when evidences have 
been for some time before it, which sufficiently 
prove that the evils which have interrupted the 
prosperity of the United States are owing to a 
departure from the precepts and the moral exam- 
ples of the former, and that the principles of Jef- 
ferson have been the direct cause of that fatal 
deviation. Injurious as these principles have 
been to America, the extent to which they have 
been enabled to disturb mankind can never be 
appreciated until they are stated in some detail; 
and as — perhaps hastily — a passage has been 
printed from the MS. journal whence this work 
has been taken, which it is too late now to recall, 
the best justification for the expression of an 
opinion so hostile to the reputation of Mr. Jef- 
ferson will be afforded by a sketch of his career, 
the facts of which will be drawn from the pages 
of his very able biographer.t 

To render the subject more clear to those of 
the present generation who are but imperfectly 
acquainted with the history of the old British 
colonies, and the circumstances which led to the 
establishment of their independence, the author 
of this work proposes in the first instance to give 
a slight review of their condition introductory to 
the period when Mr. Jefferson bore so conspicu- 
ous a part in the affairs of his country. A state- 
ment of the principal causes which led to a relax- 
ation of the connexion of Great Britain with 
those colonies, and finally to their separation, 
cannot but be instructive to the lovers of our an- 
cient monarchy, especially at this time, when 
other dependencies of the crown are rapidly 
growing up into importance, and will soon be- 
come so vitally interwoven with her power and 
ihe influence she exercises in preserving the 
peace of the world, that the importance of at- 
taching- them to her as well by their svmpathies 
as by their interest, is one of "the gravest ques- 
tions for her statesmen. The descendants of our 
common fi)refathers who colonised North Amer- 
ica were at all times, as they are now, proud of 
their origin ; but the strength the mother country 
derived from that pride, was from the first more 
than counteracted by the seeds of disaffection 
that were too rankly sown there, and which, al- 
most unheeded and unchecked, only waited to 
be strong enough to overcome a feeling of at- 
tachment that derived its support as much from, 
that pride as from afl^ction. 



Statesmen of the Time of George III. Third Series, p. 
1237. London, 1843. 
' t Vide Professor Tucker's Life of Jefferson. London, 183T 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



165 



The original British colonists of North Amer- 
ica may be divided into two classes,— those en- 
terprising and speculalive adventurers who went 
to Virginia in pursuit of wealth, and the Puri- 
tans, who left their native country for the sake 
of enjoying freedom of opinion. The southern, 
or Virginian colony, became in all material cir- 
cumstances a copy of ihe mother country. Re- 
ligion was established "according to the form 
and discipline of the Church of England;" each 
parish had its glebe and parsonage, and primo- 
geniture and entails were the law of the land, 
indeed, Ihe broadest foundations appeared to 
have been laid lor a loyal administration of the 
province, if the government at home, attending 
carefully to the development of its prosperity, 
had given to those individuals, distinguished for 
their intelligence and the stake they held there, 
a just share of the honours and advantages of 
their territorial government. 

This, however, was not done, and the distinc- 
tions due to the colonial aristocracy being exclu- 
sively lavished upon the needy hangers-on of 
the aristocracy of the mother country, the seeds 
of disaffection were sown, and appeared in their 
season. Although dissatisfaction was evinced on 
this account in "Virginia at an early period, yet 
the first germ of American aversion to monar- 
chical government is to be traced to the Puritans 
■who settled the northern colony of Massachu- 
setts. The sole object for which the leaders of 
this class expatriated themselves was to be out 
of the reach of what they deemed an intolerable 
spiritual tyranny; and as the church and the 
temporal authority by which its power was en- 
forced were equally odious in their eyes, the love 
of spiritual and political independence became 
rooted in them. The consequent attachment to 
democratic principles formed a permanent fea- 
ture in their religious and civil government, and 
continued unabated, but dormant, until 1775, at 
which period they first assumed an attitude of 
rebellion to the monarchy of England. 

Passing over the colonization of other parts of 
North America, of the Carolinas, and Georgia, 
of Pennsylvania and New York, the Atlantic 
frontier of North America became gradually 
occupied with an enterprising people, rejoicing 
in absolute freedom from all restraint, enjoying 
all the privileges of the representative form of 
government, and indulging from time to time in 
the excitenients peculiar to colonial govern- 
ments, derived from causes both real and ima- 
ginary. Although the differences in religious 
opinion were seldom the subject of open and ac- 
tive dissension amongst them, yet those also 
were spreading at the same time, sectarianism 
and democracy going hand in hand and waiting 
their day. 

Thus did these colonies grow in strength and 
importance until the middle of the eighteenth 
century, when a danger menaced them which 
united the planters of the South with the h;irdy 
farmers and merchants of the North, in defence 
of their country. 

France, at this period, had drawn a military 
cordcm from Cluebec, by the way of the lakes 
and the rivers Ohio and Mississippi, to New 
Orleans, and had encouraged the tribes of sav- 
age nations under her influence, to fall upon the 
defenceless families that had gradually advanced 
into the interior from the coast. Her intention 
was to subdue the British colonies, and her 
preparations were of the most formidable kind. 
This peril was imminent, and the colonies must 



inevitably have succumbed, but for the protect- 
ing arm of the mother country. A bloody and 
expensive war now began, in which some of 
the colonists engaged with vigour, but the bur- 
den of the contest lell upon the mother country, 
which had to iurnish troops, money, and arms. 
The delt-at of Braddock's army in 1755, a part 
of which was saved by the firmness and judg- 
ment of Colonel Wasiiington, then a loyal pro- 
vincial ofiicer, increased the general dismay.* 
But as has so frequently occurred in our history, 
upon those great occasions which have called 
forth the power of Great Britain, France was 
attacked when she least expected it, at the very 
seat of her colonial strength, and the immortal 
victory of the plains of Abraham, so dearly pur- 
chased by the life of Wolfe, was followed by the 
peace of 17G3, and the abandonment by France 
of all her possessions in North America. 

This glorious termination of an arduous strug- 
gle, and the removal from the colonies of every 
apprehension from their powerful and dangerous 
neighbour, was hailed at the time as an auspi- 
cious event that would consolidate for ever their 
union with the mother country. Hard terms 
had been imposed upon France at that peace, 
but the interest and safety of the colonies appear- 
ed to require them. Few, or none, at the mo- 
ment of triumph adverted to the fact that in mor- 
als, as well as in physics, extremes are ever 
ready to meet, and that like the pendulum, 
which, when it is hurrying to one extreme point 
of its oscillation, is only preparing to return to 
the other, the actions of men often lead to results 
diametrically opposed to those towards which, 
they seemed to be advancing. A striking proo 
of this was now about to be given, and England 
was to receive an unexpected lesson as to the 
policy of burdening herself with expensive wars 
for the protection of colonies, the leading men 
of which she had not propitiated; and who, be- 
ing dissatisfied at heart with the neglect they 
had been treated with, found, in their own re- 
sources, and in their distance frotn the mother 
country, strong inducements to oppose her au- 
thority. 

If at the close of the seven years' war, and 
the subversion of the Fr^SBh dominion in Can- 
ada, the King's ministers had turned their atten- 
tion to a reform in the proprietary governments 
suited to the period, and had conferred distinc- 
tions upon the leading men of the colonies, a 
strong party would have existed there in favour 
of securing to England some return for the im- 
portant service she had rendered them ; evea 
[)ublic opinion, which, in America, as elsewhere, 
is generally little more than the influence of em- 
inent individuals operating upon the masses, 
would probably have concurred in its propriety. 
But this was neglected, and the Stamp Act, a 
measure founded in justice when we consider 
the immense and costlv efforts England had 
made for her transatlantic subjects, was vainly 
attempted to be forced upon them. 

The historians who have justified the resist- 
ance of the colonies to the mother country, have 



* Nothing- contrilnitpd more to embolden the colonists 
when they subsequently considered the chances of licing- 
able to resist the authority of the crown, than the circum- 
stances attending this disastrous defeat of a well-appointed 
army, by an ambush of French and Indians not amounting- 
to 450 men. Dr. Franklin, alluding to it in his autobi- 
ography, says : "This whole transaction gave us Ameri- 
cans the first suspicion that our evalted ide.is of the prow- 
ess of Rritish regular troops had not been well 'oiuided." — 
' Memoirs of Benjamin Franklin,' vol. i., p. 220. 



166 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



not treated this particular grievance in a very 
ingenuous manner; they have omitted to ex- 
plain that the King's government had given to 
them the option of contributing in any manner 
they pleased a part of the expenditure incurred 
on their account, and that to this they had given 
a mo.•^t direct refusal: even Dr. Franklin, who 
has been considered by the world as the highest 
authority for the facts connected with these ne- 
gotiations, has not only stated that the colonies 
were menaced with the Stamp Act, and that Mr. 
Grenville refused to permit any contribution to 
come from their " good will," but in the letter 
where he professes to give " the true history of 
that transaction," has kept out of sight the equi- 
table propositions made by Mr. Grenville before 
that Act was imposed.* This is an important 
point in the history of the causes which have 
been alleged to justify the colonies in taking up 
arms. 

Mr. Burke, who was agent for New- York, 
publicly denied in the House of Commons that 
an option had been given ; but there is a paper, in 
the ' Historical Collections of Massachusetts,' 
which fully proves the fact. This paper was 
written by Mr. Israel Mauduit, one of the agents 
for Massachusetts, and at that time an intimate 
friend of Franklin's; the original of it is now in 
the possession' of the Historical Society of that 
State, and is entitled 'An account of a Confer- 
ence between the late Mr. Grenville and the sev- 
eral Cohny Agents, in the year 1764, previous to 
the passing the Stamp Act.'t There is therefore 



* "But this gentleman (Mr. Grenville), instead of a de- 
cent demand, sent them a menace that they should certain- 
ly be taxed, and only left them the choice of the manner." 

"But he (Mr. Grenville) chose compulsion rather than 
persuasion, and would not receive from their good will 
what he thought he could obtain without it." — Letter from 
Dr. Franklin to Wm. Alexander, Esq.; Life of Franklin, 
vol. i., p. 324. London, 1818. 

t This paper appears to have been written in consequence 
of Mr. Burke's speech, and the following is an extract from 
it : — 

" I shall give a plain narration of facts which fell within 
my own knowledge, and which, therefore, I think it a debt, 
due from me to Mr. Grenville's memory, to relate. In the 
beginning of March, 1764, a number of resolutions, relative 
to the plantation trade, were proposed by Mr. Grenville, and 
passed in the House of Commons. 

" The fifteenth of these was, ' That, towards the further 
defraying the said expenses, it may be proper to charge cer- 
tain stamp duties in the said colonies and plantations.' 

" The other resolutions were formed into the Plantation 
Act ; but the fifteenth was put off till the next session, Mr. 
Grenville declaring that he was willing to give time to con- 
sider of it, and to make their option of raising 'that, or some 
other tax. The agents waited separately on Grenville upon 
this matter, and wrote to their several colonies. At the end 
of the session we went to him, all of us together, to know 
if he still intended to bring in such a bill. He answered, 
he did ; and then repeated to us in form, what I had before 
heard him say in private, and in the House of Commons : 
'that the late war had found us seventy milloins, and left 
us more than one hundred and forty millions in debt. He 
knew that all men wished not to be taxed ; but that in these 
unhappy circumstances, it was his duty, as a steward for 
the pulilic, to make use of every just means of improving 
the public revenue : that he never meant, however, to 
charge the colonies with any part of the interest of the na- 
tional debt. But, besides that public debt, the nation had 
incurred a great annual expense in the maintaining of the 
several new conquests which we had made during the war, 
and by which the colonies were so much benefited. That the 
American civil and military establishment, after the peace 
of Aix la Chapelle, was only 70,OOOZ. per annum. It was 
now increased to 350,000Z. This was a great additional 
expense upon an American account ; and he thought, there- 
fore, that America ought to contribute towards it. He did 
not expect that the colonies should raise the whole, but some 
part of it he thought they ought to taise, and this stamp 
duty was intended for that purpose. 

" ' That he judged this method ot raising the money the 
easiest and most equitable ; that it was a tax which would 
fall only upon property, would be collected by the fewest 



no room left for a doubt that the colonies had 
every opportunity afforded them of choosing 
their own manner of discharging a debt, the jus- 
tice of which could not be denied, and which, if 
they had consented to its being the subject of a 
negotiation, would most probably have been re- 
duced to an equitable amount, susceptible of a 
very easy liquidation. 

The Stamp Act having no friends in America, 
was the signal lor insurrection secretly fomented 
by those who had been neglected; and the spirit 
of disatiection was fostered by the vacillatory 
policy of the King's ministers." Relieved from 
their apprehensions of French conquest, and con- 
scious of their strength, the colonies now Ibrmed 
plans for turning against the mother country the 
energies which had been awakened in them by 
their late dangers; and from the passing of the 
Stamp Act to the breaking out of the rebellion, 
the misunderstanding increased. All the kind 
I'eelings which the protection given to the colo- 
nies had produced were effaced; every measure 
that appeared to promote British commercial in- 
terests was resisted, and the whole energies of 
America becoming at length directed against the 
Crown, France, which had so many motives for 
crippling the power of England, and which had 
never pardoned her the hard terms she had re- 
ceived at the peace of 1763, united her arms to 
those of America, and the independence of the 
colonies was accomplished. 

England retired from the scene of her disasters 
with at least some consolation. She had laid the 
broad foundation of a nation gifted with her own 
courage, intelligence, and enterprise; and al- 
though it was severed from her dominion, men 
of experience soon began to see that the future 
commercial intercourse with the United States 



officers, and would be equally spread over America and the 
West Indies, so that all would bear their share of the pub- 
lic burthen.' He then went on : 'I am not, however, set 
upon this tax. If the Americans dislike it, and prefer any 
other method of raising the money themselves, I shall be 
content. Write therefore to your several colonies, and if 
they choose any other mode, I shall be satisfied, provided the 
money be but raised.' Upon reading over this narration with. 
Mr. Montagu, who was then agent for Virginia, and pres- 
ent at this conference with Mr. Grenville, I have his au- 
thority to say that he entirely assents to every particular. 
All these i)articulars I had before heard from Mr. Grenville, 
in the House of Commons, and at his own house ; and had 
wrote to the Massachusetts Assembly accordingly. 

" The following extracts contain their answer on this 
head : — 

" 'Sir, Boston, June, 14, 1764. 

" 'The House of Representatives has received your sev- 
eral letters. 

" ' The actual laying the stamp duty, you say, is deferred 
till next year, Mr. Grenville being willing to give the prov- 
inces their option to raise that, or some equivalent tax, de- 
sirous, as he was pleased to express himself, to consult the 
ease and quiet, and the good will of the colonies. 

" ' If the ease, the quiet, and the good will of the colo- 
nies are of any importance to Great Britain, no measures 
could be hit upon that have a more natural and direct ten- 
dency to enervate those principles than the resolutions you 
enclosed. 

" ' The kind offer of suspending the stamp duty in the 
manner, aud upon the condition, you mention, amounts to 
no more than this, that if the colonies will not tax them- 
selves as they may be directed, the Parliament will tax 
them. 

" ' You are to remonstrate against these measures, and, 
if possible, to obtain a repeal of the Sugar Act, and prevent 
the imposition of any further duties or taxes on the colonies. 
Measures will be taken that you may be joined by all the 
other agents.' 

" One of those measures was the printing this letter, and 
sending it to the other colony assemblies. 

" After their own express acknowledgment, therefore, 
no one, I suppose, will doubt but they had the offer of rais- 
ing the money themselves, and that they refused it, which 
is all that I am concerned to jirove."— Historical Oollectisnt 
of Massachusetts, vol, ix. p. 268. 



TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 



167 



wou;d be more advantageous to the mother coun- 
try than it could have been if they had remained 
in a colonial state. But that which gave the 
greatest satisfaction to all men of reflection sub- 
sequent to the establishment of this new govern- 
ment amongst the nations of the earth was, that 
the youn? republic was to be organised under 
the influence of the man whose conduct, during 
the struggle and after its termination, had raised 
him to the highest renown wherever civilization 
existed; for never had there been an instance in 
history where the private and public virtues of 
a chief had seemed to give a more certain guar- 
antee to the world for the future character ol a 
people, in the first days of their national exist- 
ence, than those which had illustrated the career 
of George Washington. 

But whilst so glorious a future was open to 
the United States under his guidance, and as if 
a good and evil principle- must be always con- 
flicting, it was their misfortune to possess anoth- 
er man eminent for his qualifications, and for 
the influence they had given him over a great 
portion of his countrymen ; one, however, who 
had cherished from his youth upwards, what 
are now called rcvolutionanj views for the estab- 
lishment of liberty. Perhaps the most interest- 
ing truth which history reveals to us, is that that 
degree of national freedom which unites good 
men in the preservation of lile, property, and or- 
der, is inherent to the calm and regular progress 
of society, and cannot be forced onwards by the- 
oretical impulses. Mr. Jefferson thought other- 
wise; his maxim was not to assist the natural 
growth, and train and guide what he had found 
planted by the wisdom of other times; but whilst 
he rooted up what already existed, to bring for- 
ward new and experimental varieties, suited to 
the tastes of theoretical reformers and superfi- 
cial philosophers. 

Mr. Jefferson was born in Virginia in 1743, a 
period at which the colonists there looked exclu- 
sively to the mother country as their mode). The 
church of England in that province was not only 
established by law, each parish having a cler- 
gyman with a fixed salary, a glebe, and a par- 
sonage-house, but the eldest sons of the opulent 
planters were usually sent to England to receive 
their education. Their tastes were thus formed 
for English arts, literature, and politics ; and as 
the right of primogeniture existed, they natural- 
ly became the patrons of liberal pursuits on their 
return to their native country. Society in this 
colony was at that time upon an excellent foot- 
ing ; the upper classes were distinguished from 
the others as much as they were in any other 
country, and were respected by the people. 

Mr. "Jefferson, who did not belong to any of 
the old Virginian families, commenced the study 
of the law under one of the most violent oppo- 
nents of the measures of the crown, and at an 
early period took an active and zealous part upon 
every occasion when dissatisfaction was to be 
expressed with the British government. In the 
measures of the colonial burgesses and delegfates 
that led to the final rupture with Lord Dunmore, 
in 1775, he took a very prominent part; and in 
1776 he retired from the Congress to which he 
had been elected, in order to become a member 
of the Legislature of his native State, where he 
could have a belter opportunity of carrying out 
his own revolutionary innovations. His talents 
and influence were now universally recognised, 
and enabled him to carry his measures against 
the leading families in the province, who feared 



the man, but had not the courage to oppose him. 
Almost as soon as he had taken his seat, he 
brought in a bill to convert estates in tail into 
lee simple, avowing as his reason that he wish- 
ed "to make an opening for the aristocracy of 
virtue and talent."* In the committee to which 
this matter was referred, he met with some op- 
position, which he answered by staling, 

"That the eldest son could have no claim, in 
reason, to twice as much as his brothers or sis- 
ters, unless lie could cat Lxoice as much, or do double 
work."t • 

The next step which he took, and which very 
naturally followed the abolition of entails, was 
to procure the destruction of the church estab- 
lishment, and to place all religious sects en the 
same footing of voluntary contribution. Vari- 
ous enactments were made for the accompplish- 
ment of this measure, the first of which suspend- 
ed the laws which provided salaries for the cler- 
gy: in 1779 these laws were all unconditionally 
repealed, and the final enactment on church mat- 
ters authorized the overseers of the poor to sell 
the glebe lands, as they became vacant. 

Having accomplished his favourite object of; 
bringing down to the general level all the estab- 
lished families of his native state, as well as the 
Episcopal church, Mr. Jefferson's field of actioa 
was again transferred to the concerns of the na- 
tion, and in 1784 he joined his colleague, Dr. 
Franklin, at Paris, as joint minister to France. 
After remaining there some time, he paid a vis- 
it, in 1786, to Mr. Adams, the American minis- 
ter in London, and was presented at court, where, 
he says, he was " ungraciously received." Jf 
we are to judge from the bitterness of some of 
his expressions to his correspondents, it is prob- 
able he made no secret of the dislike he cherish- 
ed to England. Speaking of the country, in one 
of these letters, he says: 

"Her hatred is deep-rooted and cordial, and 
nothing is wanting with her but the power to 
wipe us and the land we live in out of existence."! 
In one of his letters, written in 1786, is the fol- 
lowing curious passage, a part of which is re^ 
markable for its prophetic character: 

" American reputation in Europe is not such as 
to be Jiatt-ering; ta its citizens. T*o circumstan- 
ces are particularly objected to us : tlie non-pay- 
vicnt of our debts, and the want of energy in our 
gnvenment. They discourage a connexion with us. 
I own it to he my opinion that good will arise 
from the destruction of our credit. "§ 

Upon another occasion he endeavours to stim- 
ulate that national vanity and self-sufficiency 
which are often so conspicuous in young coun- 
tries, and to cherish in his fellow-citizens that in- 
flated feeling of superiority over other nations, 
which many of them were even then beginning 
to attribute to their own, saying: 

"If all the sovereigns in Europe were to set 
themselves to work to emancipate the minds of 
j their subjects from their present ignorance and 
prejudices, a thousand years will not place them 
on that high ground on which our common peo- 
] pie are now setting out. Ours could not have 
j been so fairly placed under the control of the 
common sense of the people, had they not been 
j separated from their parent stock, and kept from 
j contamination, either from them or the other 
I people of the (dd world, by the intervention of so 
wide an ocean. '11 



* Tuclver's Life of Jefferson, voL i.,p. 97. Lii 
t Il)id., p. 112. tlbitl., p. 9IH. 

t Ibid., p. 231. II Ibid., p. 240. 



168 



TEAVELS IN AMERICA. 



During his residence in France, Mr. Jefferson 
was intimately connected with the leaders that 
•were preparing the French revolution ; and from 
the fbllovviiig passage in a'letter respecting some 
disturbances in Massachusetts, which he wrote 
from Paris in 1787 to a friend, it would seem 
thai all the steps necessary to carry out the views 
of these men were already familiar to his mind : 

"What country before ever existed a century 
and a half without a rebellion 1 And what coun- 
try can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not 
warned from tim^ to time that its people preserve 
the spirit of resistance! Let them lake arms. 
The remedy is lo set them right as to facts, par- 
don and pacify them. What signify a few lives 
lost in a century^ two 1 The tree of liberty must 
be refreshed, f/onjjMme lo time, vnth the blood of pa- 
triots and tyrant^. It is its natural manure.'''* 

This sentiment has been lately attributed to 
another quarter. Immediately on the Conven- 
tion having voted the death of Louis XVI. in 
1792, Barere, now justly esteemed the most infa- 
mous of all the terrorists, rose and addressed the 
Assembly in a speech containing the following 
pa.ssage: — 

" The tree of liberty, as an ancient author re- 
marks, flourishes when it is watered with the 
blood of all classes of tyrants. "t 

The able authorof the article entitled' Barfere's 
Memoirs,' in that number of the 'Edinburgh Re- 
view' from which this pa.ssage is taken, ob.serves, 
in quoting it, " We wish that a note had been 
added to inform us from what ancient author 
Barere quoted. In the course of our own small (!) 
reading among the Greek and Latin writers, we 
have not happened to fall in with trees of liberty 
and watering-pots full of blood; nor can we, 
such is our ignorance of classical antiquity, even 
imagine an Attic or Roman orator employing 
imagery of that sort. In plain words, when Ba- 
rere talked about an ancient author, he was lying, 
as he generally was when he asserted any fact, 
great or small. Why he lied on this occasion 
we cannot guess, unless, indeed, it was lo keep 
his hand in." 

It is, indeed, evident enough that we need not 
go to antiquity for such a sentiment; jargon of 
that kind about the tree of liberty could belong lo 
no author more ancient than Mr. .TefTerson, who, 
it is to be remarked, at the time he expressed 
himself thus, was not a very young enthusiast, 
having already reached the mature age of forty- 
four years. Barere, no doubt, veiled his authori- 
ty, because it was not convenient to quote the 
American minister. 

In 1789, when the Etats-Generaux met, Mr. 
Jefferson, who still represented the United States, 
drew up a charter of rights for the French peo- 
ple, but, although Lafayette and others gave it 
their sanction, it was not adopted. 

What chance the public creditor would have 
Tinder Mr. Jefferson's first principles of govern- 
ment may be gathered from his opinions, as we 
find them recorded by his biographer:? 

" He (Mr. Jefferson) insists thnt the use of the 
earth belongs to the living generation, and that 
the dead have no more right than they have pow- 
er over it. In the application of this principle, 
he maintains that no generation can pledge or 



Tiiolier'sLifpot'.TeflFerson.viil. i.,p. 2S2. Londoo, 1837 
t Eiliiil>urgh Review. April, 1844, p. 997. 
t Tucker's Life of Jefferson, vol. i., p. 324-5. 

** TH 



encumber the lands of a country lieyond the av- 
erage term of its own existence, which term, by ~- 
relerence to the annuity tables of Buffon, he' es- ' 
tiiTiates first at thirty-four years, and afterwards 
reduces to nineteen years. By reason ol'ihis re- 
striction, founded in nature and the first princi- 
ples of justice, he maintains that every law, and" 
even constitution, naturally expires at the expira- 
tion of this term; and that no public debt can be 
contracted which would be rightfully binding on 
the nation after the same lapse of time." 

This egregious argument — which was very 
ably refuted by Mr. Madison, in a letter to Mr. 
Jefferson— is the germ of that "first principle" 
called " repudiation," which he bequeathed to 
his country; a principle which, if admitted into 
civilized life, would strike at the root of that nat- 
ural feeling inherent in all rightly disposed com- 
munities, viz., to protect the interests and wel- 
fare of that posterity of which their own chil- 
dren form a part. 

In the year 1794, Mr. Jefferson, at the age of 
56, left the Cabinet of President Washington, in 
which his opinions found but little support, and 
retired to his .seat in the country, ostensibly to 
enjoy rural pursuits and domestic happiness. 
Professing to despise distinctions and employ- 
rrtents, he declared to a friend that he was so 
weaned from public pursuits that he should 
"never take another newspaper of any sort,"* 
yet at this very time his house was not only the 
general rendezvous of the most active opponents 
of Washington's administration, and the point 
where all their political measures were concert- 
ed, but from thence Mr. Jetferson himself wrote 
the bitterest attacks for the democratic journals, 
upon the administration of the man to whom he . 
continued to profess in public the most devoted 
aita'-htnent. Of the philosophic tone of his mind, 
and of the sincerity of his abandonment to rural 
pursuits, the following extract of a letter to a 
Mr. Tench Coxe, written soon after he had 
reached his country seat, Monticello, furnishes 
an admirable example: 

"Over the foreign powers, I am convinced 
they (the French) will triumph completely, and 
I cannot but hope that that triumph, and the con- 
sequent disgrace of the invading tyrants, is des- 
tined, in the order of event.s, to kindle the wrath 
of the people of Europe against those who have 
dared to embroil them in such wickedness, and 
to bring, at length, kings, nobles, and priests, to the 
scaffolds, ichich they have been so long deluging with 
human blood. I am still loarm wheriever I think of 
t/iese scoU7idrcls."f 

With this example and these precepts before 
us, we need not be surprised that having suc- 
ceeded in weaning a majority of the people from 
their confidence in Washington's principles of 
government, he should at length have achieved 
his object of being raised to the supreme power; 
and that his opinions so largely sown in the 
minds of a great portion of his countrymen, 
should have produced in them a scornful con- 
tempt of all the regular governments of Europe, 
the proscription of the most respectable of their 
own countrymen, and the accomplishment at 
length of those fatal acts which are at this day 
so injurious to the honour and character of Re- 
publican America. 



* Tucker's Life of Jefferson, vol. i., p. 
t Ibid., vol. i., p. 532. 



London, l< 



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